It's Called a Heart Attack
by Cafinatedangel13
Summary: You do know you could literally scare yourself to death, right?" "Yeah, it's called a heart attack." Some of the X-men are facing their greatest fears for a little spine-chilling fun. What happens when someone starts taking their game seriously?
1. Chapter 1

**It's Called a Heart Attack**

This is what I call a maybe/maybe not fic. I might take this idea and run with it, I've got a vague (very vague) plot in mind, or I may never actually get around the real story. Maybe/maybe not.

The small wire door of the cage squeaked lightly as it opened. Kitty's pale blue eyes stared directly into the small opening for several heartbeats before she took a deep, calming breath, forcing all her muscles to relax as she exhaled slowly. Her right arm rose hesitantly, hovering at about waist-height before quickly settling palm up on the soft, mulch-like bedding covering the cage floor.

Almost immediately something small and wet began exploring soft expanse of her upturned hand. A light skittering sound, sharp and piercing against the otherwise silence of the room, echoed loudly in her ears as the soft wetness was accompanied by something long and thin brushing against and tickling her fingers. Her whole body seized up, her shoulders locking, back straitening, legs tensing, as her 'fight or flight' instinct responded to the stimuli created by the creature in the cage.

Something soft and warm began sliding along her hand, brushing against her fingers, and ghosting along her palm. It tickled and itched, causing her whole hand to clench a little involuntarily.

"30 seconds." Kitty barely heard Rogue's quiet announcement of the half-way mark over the pounding of her pulse as the tickling softness was replaced by tiny, needle-like pricks traveling along her palm and…oh God_ it was climbing up her wrist!_

Something warm and almost rubbery swiped across the length of her hand, and it was all Kitty could do to smother the shriek forming in the back of her throat. It escaped as small, weak sounding whimper as the rat moved curiously up her arm, pausing to sniff her elbow.

For a moment, Kitty just stared at the roughly cat-sized creature sitting on her arm. Its nose twitched again, making the long, whisper thin whiskers brush along her sweater. Eyes like tiny black holes peered up at her, and she bit her lip, desperately fighting the urge to phase through her chair.

Becoming bored with the narrow area of her arm, the rodent leapt from her elbow to her lap, and Kitty flinched involuntarily, a sick gulping noise sounding in the base of her throat. Her arms raised about shoulder level, hands clenched into fists so tight she was certain she drew blood.

"45 seconds."

Her breathing began to increase as her lungs constricted, insisting that she was not getting enough air, although she knew she was on the verge of hyperventilating. The rat stood on its hind legs, its front paws resting against her stomach and she felt those tiny claws through her pink sweater as it quickly climbed up to her shoulder. She tried to focus on the color, light, cotton candy pink, like marshmallows or sun sets, so that she would not be focusing on the tiny pins she could feel exploring the area where her neck connected with her shoulder.

"55 seconds."

Oh no…

"4…"

…that warm little nose was poking around behind her ear…

"3…"

…her eyes clenched shut, but she could still feel that naked little tail curling around her neck, resting over her shoulder…

"2…"

…her fingers gripped the sides of chair until her knuckles turned white…

"1…"

…eeek, _it was in her hair_.

"Done."

No sooner had the word been uttered, Kitty exploded from the chair in a frenzy of fear and panic. "Getitoffgetitoffgetitoffgetitoff!"


	2. Chapter 2

Well, I guess I've decided to continue. Don't think all my updates will be this quick. Really, I've still got a Yu Yu Hakusho fic that I haven't updated in a year.

Anyway, I'd like to dedicate this chapter to Nightcarwler's Shadow, who asked for it.

"Getitoffgetitoffgetitgetitoff!"

Kitty knew she wasn't helping, was perhaps making the situation worse. She could feel her arms flailing erratically about her head as she fought to off-balance the rodent clinging to her hair, her sweater, her _skin_. She could hear herself shrieking, the high pitched wails stinging her throat and ringing in her ears.

She could also hear the poor rat squealing as her frenzied movements jostled it about, and her repeated pleas probably sounded even sharper to its ears. She knew that she was scaring it as much as, possibly more than, it was scaring her and that that was making the whole situation infinitely more difficult to rectify. She _knew_ all of this, but she couldn't help it.

It's an interesting experience, watching yourself panic.

"Okay, okay, okay. Calm down," Rogue instructed, her prominent drawl smooth and comforting. Kitty managed to downgrade her shrill mantra to a series of much smaller whimpers and moans, though her arms still clawed uselessly at the back of her neck, trying to remove the rat which, by now, was hopelessly tangled in her hair.

She felt someone else, Pietro she was pretty sure, begin grabbing at her hands and arms gently, easing them down to be replaced by Rogue's careful fingers, and murmuring soothing words that weren't making any sense. Still, she flinched every time the rat squirmed.

"Hold still," Evan commanded with little of the patients Rogue had offered, but Kitty was fairly certain she had caught his cheek with her nails so he was probably justified. Almost simultaneously, Kurt appeared in the half-open doorway, probably drawn by her screams, his cat-like golden eyes wide with confusion and worry. Her own eyes clenched shut tight, and she forced her muscles to relax. The soft leather of Rogue's gloves eased across her neck and hairline as her deft fingers carefully extracted the terrified rodent form her clothes and hair.

The small weight of the rat lifted from her shoulders, taking the tiny needles and soft warmth with it. Not waiting for assurances from her roommate that her hair was free as well as her shoulders, she shoved roughly through the two boys huddled in front of her to where Kurt hovered in the door and grasped his arm left arm tightly with both hands, swinging herself around and behind him. Her momentum knocked him slightly off-balance and, had he been anyone else, both of them would have ended up on the floor. But Kurt had managed to stay on his feet in far more precarious situations, and steadying the two of them was hardly even a reflex.

Kitty peeked cautiously over Kurt's shoulder, pressing herself up against his back and clutching his arm like a child would her favorite toy to ward off a nightmare. Her palms were sweaty, and there were delicious chills running up and down her spine. She could hear the blood pounding her ears.

It was over in seconds. Her breathing had already begun to slow, and she could feel her heartbeat resuming a more normal rhythm. The adrenalin began to dilute in her blood leaving an eerie euphoria in its wake.

Rogue was having a hard time holding on to the still terrified rat. She and Pietro had to wrestle it back into the cage, but it seemed to calm down once inside.

"Vas are you guys _doing_?"

And then she started laughing.

Kurt was confused. He _had_ been on his way downstairs, hoping that he had left his chemistry book on the kitchen table because otherwise it was in his locker and his assignment was only half done. He'd passed the half-open door just in time to hear someone shriek.

He quickly identified the room as the one Kitty shared with Rogue and reacted in the manner beaten into him by a thousand Danger Room drills. But as soon as he'd gotten through the doorway, he'd been blindsided by an absolutely _terrified _Kitty Pride.

Now she was grasping his arm and peeking out over his shoulder as Rogue and…_Pietro?_...fought a brown rat roughly the size of small house cat into a pet carrier. She was pressed up against his back, as if he could somehow protect her from the equally frightened rodent, and her grip on his arm was becoming painful. Not that he really minded…

But still, he was at loss. "Vas are you guys _doing?_"

And then she started laughing. Not muffled giggles, or chuckling, or even manic laughter of hysteria. No it was all out-holding-your -ides-can't-stand-up-that-was-the-funniest-thing-I've-ever-seen laughter. He could feel her shaking from the force of it, and the Vulcan Death Grip she had on his arm loosened as her stance shifted from hiding behind him to leaning against him.

"Oh my God," she managed to breathe out, "I _hate _those things!"

"Really?" Rogue chuckled. She was still standing in front of the cage arms crossed over her chest as she grinned playfully at her roommate. "We hadn't noticed."

"Oh man," Evan laughed with her from his place on her bed, "When that rat crawled up your neck, I thought for sure you'd freak out! Hell, I think _I _would have freaked out."

"Well, proof of concept," Pietro reported settled down on window bench, a rare note of respect in his voice. "The Kitty-cat's got nerves of steel."

"I'm feeling a little left out here," Kurt prodded, a little irritated at being ignored.

"We're playin' a game," Rogue replied, in an off-handed manner, as if that explained everything.

"A game?" Kurt responded slowly, willing things to start making sense. Alas, the universe ignored him. Thankfully, Kitty did not.

"Uh huh. It's like, responding to fear, ya know. Like right now we're facing our biggest fears head on…well the ones that we can replicate anyway," she explained, practically bouncing with excitement.

"And know about," Rogue added not _quite _sarcastically. "I'm sure there are psychologists out there who would say that, psychologically speaking, _we _don't really even know what we're mot afraid of." She had gotten roped into taking an intro psychology course when her class schedule had had a few too many study halls, and she was a bit bitter.

Kurt knew really shouldn't have been surprised. He knew Kitty had a deep and inexplicable love of horror movies and owned pretty much every Stephan King novel ever published, not to mention a library of other miscellaneous authors all with enough gore and terror to give him nightmares for weeks. It was one of the few things she and Rogue had in common and something they'd managed bond over.

"See," he turned as Evan took over as tour guide of the Xavior House of Horrors, "You try to last one minute face to face your biggest fear without panicking or freaking out. Anything after that is off the record."

Kurt took in the atmosphere of the room. The lights were off, but they'd left the door open a little, allowing the hall light to siphon in, creating an eerie twilight that left shadows on the wall and played tricks on your eyes. The window was open and the wind, while not howling, was plenty vocal and made the curtains dance just enough to have one paranoid about an unexpected visitor lurking around the room.

"Vas," he replied jokingly, in an effort to distract himself from his own steadily growing paranoia, "No pipe organs?" Kitty reached around him and picked up the stereo remote from Rogue's dresser. Creepy, screeching notes oozed from the speakers.

She smiled up at him, "We've got that violin track from _Psycho_, too." Kurt resisted the urge to roll his eyes.

"Anyway," he jumped as Pietro moved from his seat under the window, slipping away from the shadows and into the half light. "This week we're scaring the living daylights outta Kitty and Rogue. Next week it's me and Evan." He smiled, not that ever present, condescending smirk that said he thought you were beneath the dirt stuck to his shoes, a real smile even if it _was_ a bit sinister. Especially in the shadowy light. "So whatd'ya say Blueboy; you in?"

It took a moment for it to register that he'd been invited into their game. He liked horror movies as much as any teenage boy and, he had to admit, Edgar Allen Poe was one of his favorite authors, he must have read _The Masque Of The Red Death _a thousand times. But…any of those were just stories. Pick them up, dust them off, and know you can put it back anytime you want to. He didn't see anything fun about trying to give yourself nightmares.

"Yeah Kurt, do you wanna play with us?"

Kitty had come around from her hiding place behind him, her arms now loosely wrapped around his and holding it to her chest like a teddy bear. She smiled at him, her blue eyes sparkling and her peaches and cream complexion flushed with excitement. Her chocolaty brown ponytail danced around her shoulders as she bounced up and down on her toes, at the prospect of him joining their game. He felt his lips curl into a wide smile at how cute she looked, and he released a mental sigh.

_I'm weak._


	3. Chapter 3

Ok, nothing to do with the chapter, but does anybody have access, or know anybody who has access to a story called "Cat and Mouse" by Slarti, or something very close to that? I keep finding references to it all over the map, but the actual story doesn't seem to be anywhere on the internet. At first it just sounded like a good story, now I'm just irritated that I can't find it. So if anyone can help me out, I'll be eternally grateful…

Yes, well, anyway, on with the story!

"Alright," Rogue said grasping Kitty's arm and pulling her further into the room, pausing to raise an eyebrow at Kurt standing awkwardly in the doorway, as if waiting for permission to enter. It took a moment for it to click that Kurt had been raised with deep, old fashioned morals, and that it was probably some kind of serious transgression to enter a lady's bedroom without her express permission. Never mind that he'd already been invited. Both Kitty and Rogue, once they realized the reason for his hesitation, complied by grabbing an arm each jerking him inside. Turning back to Kitty, Rogue continued, "Lemme take a look at your neck; make sure your little friend didn't do anything irreversible."

Kitty vaguely waved a hand, brushing it off, "Don't worry about it. It's just a little itchy."

"No harm in takin' a look then."

Kitty's hands took up residence on her hips in a distinctly uncooperative manner, "Really, Rogue, it's just, like, a minor skin irritation that'll be gone by, like, tomorrow. Promise."

Rogue rose to the challenge, crossing her arms over her chest and raising her chin defiantly, "Reeeeaally," she drawled.

"I will raise my right hand to the deity of your choosing and swear to it."

"Are you sure, 'cause I would just _love_ to hear the explanation you've got cooked up for Dr. McCoy on the off-chance some of those scratches of yours actually do get infected."

Kitty sighed in defeat, and Rogue smirked, knowing that the argument (which the three males present had wisely chosen to remain merely spectators of) had ended in a victory for her. It wasn't that anyone was particularly concerned with secrecy or getting caught by the, for lack of a better term, parental figures of the mansion; it was just that nobody was really interested in getting into the details of their game with them if they could at all avoid it. Unless of course they wanted to play, which was a different story all together.

The resulting compromise was that Rogue could conduct her examination of Kitty's, admittedly, slight wounds while everyone caught Kurt up on anything he might have missed.

"Because there _are _rules," Kitty replied, twisting her long, brown hair into a messy bun to keep it out of Rogue's way.

"Well, ja, because otherwise you might all just be playing in random chaos."

"You know," Kitty responded with a sidelong glance at Rogue, "I don't think he's taking us seriously…"

"Sorry, sorry." He raised his hands in the universal gesture of surrender, "I'll be good, I promise. These rules are?"

Which left Rogue sitting on her knees behind Kitty, who had kicked Evan off of her bed, examining the back of her neck with the carefully trained eye of one who has been on the receiving end of medical treatment often enough that she could recite the basics in her sleep and only half-listening as everyone else got down to business.

"Rule number one is like Vegas," Evan was saying while Rogue narrowed her eyes and bit her lip in concentration. "What happens here, stays here." He was now seated on floor in front of her bed since his self preservation instincts informed him that Rogue's _anything _was off limits.

"That's really just to keep the peace," Kitty interjected, nudging Kurt with her foot. He was settled down across from Evan, his head leaned back against the bed just to the right of Kitty's knee. "It'd be an unfair advantage ya know. If it like ever came to a fight." Kurt's tail, idly swinging behind him, as it always did if he happened to be thinking of anything else, disappeared under the hanging bedspread only to reappear a moment later around Kitty's left ankle. Rogue, though deeply involved in her examination, spared a spark of attention to the action and made a mental note to talk to Kitty about it later.

The entire back of her neck was an angry red, adorned with glaring welts, several of them a full finger length at least, and bright white lines where the paper thin claws had not dug in quite as deep. Kitty, however, was correct in her diagnosis; all of the damage was superficial. None of the scratches had even broken the skin. She gave her friend a playful pinch at the juncture where her neck connected with her shoulder to let her know she was done. Kitty responded with a pinch of her own to the top of Rogue's arm.

Laughing, Rogue reported her findings. "You were right, other than being a little itchy for at least the night, the worst of the damage would probably heal by morning."

"Told ya so," Kitty sang.

"Yeah, yeah." Rogue rolled her eyes, but the smile erased any threat of irritation. "You should probably try to keep your hair away from it for a day or two anyway though."

"Yes, Mom."

"Rule number two is more of a guideline." Pietro had obviously gotten bored with listening to the girls' friendly banter. He had reclaimed his seat on the window-bench. "Anyone can be invited to play, or they can join if they ask, but the first game is always the same: one minute with your biggest fear."

"Which we've already explained," Rogue replied, moving to the chair in the middle of room Kitty had occupied just a little while ago. "Kitty, as you may have noticed, has a thing about rats."

"Where did you guys _get_ a rat anyway?" Kurt asked, glancing back at the pet carrier containing the stuff of Kitty's nightmares. He took a moment to appropriately appreciate the irony considering he knew for a fact that Kitty's favorite short story had something to do with a crooked priest and his almost frighteningly satisfying demise at the hands of the people he had mistreated returning in form the of a plague of rats.

"We started the chapter on genetics in biology this week," Kitty answered. "Pietro is holding onto this," she pointed to the pet carrier where the rat seemed to have settled down enough to sleep, "little guy for the teacher. He's part of the lesson."

"You're breeding rats in biology lab?" Kurt asked disbelieving. The experiment with the drosophila was bad enough.

"No," he turned as Pietro started talking again. "One of the problems is about rat color and tail length, and Doc Oliver likes visual aids."

"That's it, really," Rogue replied, pushing the swivel chair back and forth with her toes. "I guess we're more or less just makin' it up as we go along."

"And speaking of going along," Evan said, getting to his feet. He crossed the room and pushed a decent sized garbage can, it came up to just below his knees, from the corner by the door to sit in front of Rogue. "Kitty and caught this little fella in the garden this afternoon, and it's your turn, Rogue."

Rogue nodded, already gnawing lightly at her bottom lip, and handed a little stop watch to Kitty. "You press the two buttons on the top at the same time to zero it out. Press the kinda square-shaped one in the right corner for seconds; just hold it in till ya get to sixty. The round one in the middle starts and stops."

"You sure you're ready?" She jumped, visibly, when Pietro just appeared in front of her. At least Kurt gave some warning before just popping up; she'd take the sulfurous smoke over the surprise any day. The half-light did play nicely with his white hair, though, giving it an eerie glow that shadowed his eyes danced on his skin. He could have been a vampire in any one of her favorite movies.

She straightened her shoulders and fixed him with one of her most venomous glares. "If Kit-cat can go ten rounds with Willard," she jerked her chin in the direction of the rat, "over there, I can handle a little garter snake."

-I took Kurt's 'old fashioned morals' from a number of other fics I've read, especially the InterNutter. If you haven't already read her work, do it now. No seriously, right now.

-'I will raise my right hand to the deity of your choosing and swear it.' Paraphrased from Gilmore Girls.

-The story about the rats is real; it's in one of my anthologies, but I'm not sure which one and I can't remember the title.


	4. Chapter 4

I don't know why this chapter gave me so much trouble. It's one of the few ones where I know exactly what I want to happen; I just couldn't get it to come out right.

Anyway, I haven't mentioned it yet, but I love criticism provided it's constructive, and I _want_ to hear from you. So any aspiring English teachers or editors out there let me have it!

Rogue didn't know why she was afraid of snakes.

Logically, she knew there was no reason for it. She'd never tripped and fallen into a nest. She'd never been bitten, never found one in her bed. Hell, she'd never even been a victim of the fake ones stuffed into the peanut can.

In all honesty, she found it a little unfair that the giant, scaly worms had gotten cast as the villain in every myth, fairytale, and children's story since Adam and Eve.

But isn't it said that reason and fear hold little company together?

So there was absolutely no reason for the way her heart froze in her chest when she felt the smooth, firm form drape over her shoulders like a living scarf. No explanation for the ice water suddenly forcing its way through her veins. She _knew_ this with an absolute certainty right down to her bones. But it was happening all the same.

Her whole body straightened almost painfully before hunching over on itself, trying to become as small and insignificant as possible. As if she could meld with her surroundings; escape the perceived threat by being overlooked. A small, wounded sound escaped her lips and then she nearly choked as she tried to swallow; her throat constricting dangerously as her body tried to force her into silence.

Rogue's systems didn't react to fear in the usual manner. There was no sudden release of adrenalin flooding her system, increasing her heart rate and heightening her senses. No preparation for a fight or flight response. Instead everything inside her slowed, as if she were falling asleep. But at the same, she completely aware of everything around her.

Someday she was sure she really would fall asleep. And if that happened, she'd never wake up.

"30 seconds." Dimly a small corner of her mind, the part that _knew_ the snake was not slimy, that that was just a stereotype regardless of how it felt through the sheer material of her green over-shirt, recognized Kitty's voice as she announced the halfway point. The majority of her mind, however, could not make sense of the words.

Her breathing was unnervingly steady and shallow; slow, quiet breaths trying desperately to fill lungs that felt far too small to hold the air.

The snake, for its part, seemed content to simply lie across her shoulders and absorb her body heat, as much a statue as she was. As much as the comparison unnerved her, Rogue was grateful; if the serpent started crawling all over her like that rat had Kitty, she was certain she would faint.

As it was, she could feel sweat collecting at her temples and along the back of her neck, her hairline becoming damp and clammy; a bead already running down her cheek.

"45 seconds."

And then the snake decided to move.

It was nothing particularly dramatic; all it did was lift its head up off of her shoulder. It turned toward her neck and…swayed slightly, drifting slowly back and forth, up and down, getting a feel for its new environment. Almost as if it was aware of her deadly skin, the thin forked tongue flicked out between its lips just short of grazing the side of her chin. So close that she could feel it although no contact was made. The essence of touch, a whisper across her jaw.

Shivers danced up and down her spine painfully as her body strained against them, demanding stillness even as it flinched away from the source of its unrest. Her trembling hands gripped the sides of the chair with such force that she couldn't feel them anymore. Her eyes clenched shut so tightly she was afraid that they would bleed.

The snake settled back down, apparently finding her boring, non-threatening, inedible, or perhaps all three. Her fingers maintained their efforts to bore through the chair and behind her eyelids, she saw red.

Her pulse was so low each pump was a surprise, every rush of liquid ice through her veins a miracle because it meant her heart hadn't stopped just yet.

"55 seconds."

She could count the beats…

"4…"

_1…_

"3…"

_2…_

"2…"

_3… _

"1..."

"Done."

And then it was over. Just like that she felt the small, lithe form eased away from her shoulders, felt pins and needles begin to work through her stiff fingers as they pried themselves from the chair. Her eyes opened, blinking at the meaningless blurs and shapes around her until the world readjusted itself into a recognizable, coherent whole.

"Alright, Rogue!" Kitty congratulated her. "You did it!"

"Without any screaming and thrashing there at the end I might add."

"Be nice, Pietro. You haven't gone yet…"

Rogue was aware of Kitty's exuberant congratulations, could see her practically glowing with ill concealed excitement beside Kurt who was offering his own more subdued praises on her accomplishment. And of Pietro's apparently compulsive need to attack the pride of anyone who happened to occupy the immediate vicinity. She could see him kneeling on the floor by Evan's feet, the two having apparently temporarily joined forces against a common enemy in the form of the makeshift lid of the garbage can that happened to be a size or two too small and was refusing to release its grip on the lip of the can.

But it was all fuzzy, like echoes or hearing it from underwater. Background noise. This was because her entire universe had suddenly narrowed to the spot right in front of her.

The snake was small, no longer than her arm and certainly no thicker than her thumb. Its glossy obsidian scales were soft, muted, shining without really reflecting the light. They looked soft, supple. Like the leather of her gloves.

Its head rested lightly in the center of Evan's palm, his arm held away from his body as he tried to keep it out of the way. It coiled loosely around his wrist, patient and uninterested, waiting, perhaps, for the can to win.

As if feeling her eyes on it, the creature raised its head slightly. Its eyes were as black as its scales, and felt herself spiraling into the nothingness reflected in those cold reptilian eyes…

Kitty wasn't sure what had happened. She had responded laughingly to Pietro's unusually good natured teasing before grabbing Kurt's wrist as he offered his own tentative congratulations to Rogue's accomplishment, clearly on unstable ground concerning the protocol for his friend's victory, and dragging him playfully to where Rogue remained seated in the center of the room.

"Okay, so how do you feel? What was it like? I wanna know everything!" Her hyper chatter was out of her mouth before she realized that Rogue wasn't listening. She hadn't even moved. She sat straight as a post, her hands in her lap, mouth set in a thin line, her wide eyes locked on Evan as he and Pietro fought a losing battle with the garbage can.

The animated expression fell from her face, quickly replaced by one of concern. "Rogue?"

There was no scream, no sound at all; there should have been. A shriek or a gasp, even a little whimper. But suddenly Rogue's arm, without any apparent input from the rest of her, swung forward. Her open palm connected with the side of Evan's hand channeling enough energy to fling the snake right out of it.

Its flight was brief, clearing only the few feet between where Evan stood and the wall by Rogue's bed. Pietro, surprising no one, had already covered the distance himself and his news was not comforting.

"Ithinkitwentbehindthebed!" he reported. His speech, much like Kurt's carefree tail, required his undivided attention. Otherwise, his mouth simply moved too fast for the words.

Everyone blinked as Kitty flicked the light switch, deciding the ambience was suddenly decidedly impractical. "Can we get back there?" Evan asked wading up the comforter and tossing it to the middle of the bed to try to get a better look. It didn't do much good; there was maybe a finger-length between the bed and the floor.

"Notenoughroom," Pietro answered, shaking his head and indicating the massive head board pressed almost flush against the wall. He tapped his fist against it before shaking his head again, more disapprovingly this time. There was no way they could move it, even if they all stood on side and pushed together. He turned to Kurt. "Canyouteleportwiththis?"

Kurt looked doubtfully at the heavy, solid frame that had clearly been designed to withstand a Danger Room session. With Logan. Kitty could see his brow furrow slightly, "Not far."

"Doesn't have to be," Kitty supplied, she and Rogue coming to join group. "We just need to be able to get to the wall."

Kurt nodded thoughtfully. "Ja, I think I could manage that." Gracefully, he leapt onto the center of the bed, landing hands first. The second his fingers touched the mattress, it was gone in his signature cloud of sulfurous smoke and resulting *bamph*. Another second another cloud, and Kurt and bed had reappeared about three feet away from the wall.

Everyone piled around the newly acquired space. Evan summed it up best, "I get the feeling we're all going to be very sorry about that later."

Of course both Rogue and Kitty had been aware of the broken air vent; it was the reason Rogue's bed had been arranged with the headboard against the wall. They had intended to mention it the professor sooner or later, but out of sight, out of mind, and eventually they just forgot.

In the bottom left-hand corner of the old vent was a small hole about the size of a pool ball. Too small for even Kitty's tiny hands to get into, but plenty of room for, say, a little garter snake to squeeze through…

"Really, Rogue, you were like as still as death! I had to do a double take just to make sure you were still like _breathing_," Kitty said placing her old wooden hair brush on the vanity before seeking her bed. The boys had been chased out several hours earlier, leaving Rogue and Kitty to discuss the night's events as they got ready for bed.

"Yeah well, you were so busy flirtin' with Kurt, I'm surprised you even noticed," Rogue retorted pulling back the covers of her own bed.

Kitty's lips broke into a shy smile and her face was lit with rose petals as the blood pooled in her cheeks. "He _was_ flirting, with me wasn't he."

Rogue had to laugh. "Girl that boy's been carryin' a torch for you since before I knew him. The only one who ain't seen it is you." She pushed the pillow further up against the head board, knowing she'd just wind up sleeping below it in the night, and her eyes landed on the left hand corner. She froze, the pillow halting in midair.

"It's not there ya know," Kitty said quietly as she pulled her own covers up to her shoulders. "I mean it could be anywhere in the mansion, and it probably headed for the kitchen hours ago. For like the heat."

"I know," she said, not taking her eyes from the corner. She did know that, she really did. But the thought of feeling something soft and scaly moving against her legs in the night, of her eyes snapping open, pulling back the covers…

"Move over!" she demanded, snatching her pillow and blanket, and sprinting across the room.


	5. Chapter 5

I feel it must be mentioned that much of this chapter is a little disjointed and rambley; it is meant to be. Five points if you can guess why. 

The speed at which Scott's posture went from casual and relaxed to a defensive fighting stance, practically as the door opened, was astounding. Blinking could have erased the entire sequence of muscle and joint manipulation necessary for the change, definitely above average. Pietro, in spite of himself, was almost impressed.

Scott placed himself in the center of the open doorway, blocking the entrance; feet spaced evenly to allow the greatest variety of movement, knees bent slightly to help anticipate what those movements would be. His back was straight, but not tense, in preparation of all the different scenarios this scene could take. One hand clutched the doorknob while the other grasped the frame, making any available space as small as possible. The set of his jaw expressed what his covered eyes could not; he knew he probably couldn't _stop _the infamous Quicksilver from getting past him, but he could damn well make it a difficult, painful experience.

"What do you want, Pietro?" His voice was flat and demanding, authoritative. The tone alone highlighted every reason that made his accumulated nicknames such as 'Fearless Leader' and 'Mister Military' entirely appropriate.

Pietro, despite his sizable ego and personal issues with authority, felt compelled to answer because when Scott Summers asked you a question, you answered. When he gave an order, you followed it. And that was pretty much the end of the story. There was an air of command in the way he held himself and the tone of his voice that demanded respect. But he also wore a self criticism that showed he _knew_ he wasn't perfect, that he would make mistakes and didn't expect any different from anyone else. His personality was a combination of discipline, responsibility, and an overprotective streak that was both annoying and endearing, inspiring a paradox of loyalty and irritation, love and resentment. And like any good leader, he expertly walked a very fine line between being a boss and being a friend and knew exactly when to cross that line to one side or the other.

Privately (because even Pietro knew there were some things one just leaves alone), he thought this was why Scott and Lance got into it so often. Lance was a leader simply because he couldn't handle taking orders; he couldn't _be_ a follower, so he had to be a leader. Whereas Scott was a leader because he just _was_. Lance recognized the qualities in Scott he wished he saw in himself. Pietro, in class all his own, just liked to get his way.

Right now, however, Scott was the Fearless Leader, and he had asked a question.

"Back off, Shades." Pietro replied, his own voice condescending and impatient. Just because he felt he compelled to cooperate didn't mean he had to be nice about it. "I was invited."

Scott frowned and raised an eyebrow, clearly not satisfied with his response, and although he easily kept his typical smirk in place, Pietro had to squash the urge to straighten up and grasp his right wrist behind his back. "And I should believe that because…"

"I actually walked up here and rang the door bell?" Pietro wasn't intentionally being rude or disrespectful toward Scott, as much fun as that always proved to be. It was just what he'd done for so long he wasn't sure how to be anything else. He would have to work on that soon if things with Rogue continued in the way he liked to think they were going. He'd spent every free moment he could around her during school the day before, and she'd only threatened to drain him half a dozen times and only tried to make good on her threat once.

The boys back at the Brotherhood wondered why he was chasing after Rogue when he could almost literally have _any_ other girl he wanted. But that was it really; he _could_ have any of those girls. All he had to do was offer a sexy half smirk, maybe a few sweet words, tuck her hair behind her ear; it would be easy. But Rogue, Rogue was different, _challenging_. She was smart, witty, funny when she was in an exceptionally good mood, darkly sarcastic the rest of the time, beautiful, more than a little dangerous, and she made it clear that he _couldn't_ have her. So much more interesting than those other girls who would throw themselves at him if he implied that he wanted it.

Scott let go of the doorknob and leaned against the frame, still suspicious, but unable to really argue with his logic. His arms crossed over his chest and his expression became one of terminal curiosity, as if certain he was going to regret asking but doing so anyway. "Okay, I'll bite. Who are you here to see?"

"Me!" Evan called, taking the elegant spiral stairs two and tree at a time. "He's here to see me."

Scott turned to look at the newcomer, an expression Pietro didn't have word for, but must have fallen under the category of 'shocked' or 'disbelief' falling over his features. "Now you're both just messing with me."

"Well, it's not _only_ me," Evan corrected skidding to a stop in front of the door. "I just got here first."

Scott stared at Evan for a moment, than at Pietro, and then back at Evan again. Finally he settled for the air between the three of them, as if unsure who he should be addressing. "I…didn't know you guys were friends."

Evan shook his head. "We're not." He replied simply.

But they had been, a long time ago. Pietro wondered if Evan ever thought about those days; if he ever missed them. Pietro did, but then he had a lot of time to think.

He didn't linger through these musings, partially because Pietro never bothered to linger over anything, but mostly because something far more interesting was walking lazily through the hall. "Oh good, Speed Demon's here." Rogue did not sound pleased to see him, but, more importantly, she did not sound displeased to see him either. She looked back toward whatever room she had come from and called over her shoulder, "Hey Kit-Kat, Kurt, Pietro's here; we can start!"

"Start _what_ exactly?" Scott sighed loudly and threw up his hands in exasperation. He stepped back from the door, which Pietro took as an invitation to enter, and in a rare show of gratitude answered his question.

"The game," he replied offhandedly, taking the opportunity to look around the room. He'd been through the mansion before of course, but he'd never really bothered to look around. The front door, he now saw, opened into what seemed to be a common room. The floor was a thick, pale pink carpet that easily matched almost anything anyone could want to add to the room. A green easy chair with a back wide enough for Blob sat catty-corner to the right of the door, probably to take advantage of the sunlight through the huge glass door for reading. In the center of the room sat huge cream colored sofa, currently occupied by a mess of blankets and a single head peeking out from under them, facing a TV placed against the far wall. "The piano's a nice touch."

"What game?" The door closed, not _exactly_ slammed, but it was becoming clear that Scott was getting tired of playing any games.

"Well," Kitty and Kurt came in through the same hall that Rogue had come from, "Do you remember last week when we like kinda lost that snake in the wall?"

The incident with Rogue's snake was not as catastrophic as the group had originally anticipated it would be. It hadn't really caused any trouble at all; in fact, no one had been able to find it, and not for lack of trying. The ventilation system had been torn apart and gone over with a fine-tooth comb. There _had_ been several reported sightings over the week, but they were all by Rogue and as such nothing was confirmed.

At Scott's confirming nod, she continued, "That one."

"You're going to lose another snake in the wall?"

"I do not anticipate that to be a problem," Kurt ginned, showing off his fangs.

Jamie was not listening to the older kids' conversation, not to say that eavesdropping wasn't one of his favorite pastimes, especially since no one bothered to tell him anything anyway. The simple fact was that he was far more interested in his special Saturday morning routine than anything _they_ could be saying.

Ever since he was old enough to crawl out of bed and make his way to the living room, he'd spent Saturday mornings from 7:00 a.m. to noon wrapped up in his favorite blankets and engrossed in Saturday morning cartoons. The shows changed every few years, but his routine had been solid and remained as such even when he came to live at the Institute. The only adjustment he'd made was tagging along his little doll, Candyman.

At first he'd been a little embarrassed about bringing the old toy with him at all, he was twelve after all, far too old for stuffed toys. But it was something soft and familiar and he wanted that as he grew accustomed to his new home. Then, Rogue, who always seemed to see more than she really had any right to, had showed him her doll, a tiny purple vampire with a wide, childish smile and an opera cape, she called Vlad. She clutched the little doll to her chest and said that holding on childhood was something that everyone tried to do, and everyone had their own way of doing it. Jamie felt better after that, because if _Rogue_ held on to her favorite toy then of course so could he.

Still all Candyman really did was keep him company while he did his homework and watch over him from his desk at night. Except on Saturdays, since his cat, O'Connell, couldn't sit with him and watch cartoons anymore, Candyman did instead.

"Mind if I sit?" Jean asked, gesturing to the remaining cushion on the couch, "It looks like they may be a while."

"No, sure," he said, sitting up to give her more room. "Sonic just figured out where Tails got lost at," he started unnecessarily catching her up on the goings on of the show, his hand groping around for Candyman so she wouldn't end up sitting on him.

She laughed lightly and started to say something as she helped untangle his blankets to find a spot on the couch. There was a soft _Thud_ as something hit the floor, and then Jean started screaming.

-'But they had been, a long time ago.' is from an idea I had that will be addressed in a different fic assuming I get off my lazy butt and write it.

-We really do have a cat O'Connell; we're big fans of The Mummy.

-Vlad is also real. My sister's had him since she was about four years old and shows no indication of getting rid of him.


	6. Chapter 6

This one goes out to IBAMPH who is into this story enough to make a guess at what happens next. I do the same thing when I get really taken with a new book, so you have no idea how well that stroked my ego.

I'd also like to give a shout out to my sister who was awesome enough to come edit this chapter at 10:30 at night, even though she hurt from walking all day, and she despises grammar with the same passion which I have devoted to just about anything with numbers.

On another note, I've already figured out what scares the main characters (Kitty, Kurt, Rogue, Evan, and Pietro), but some side characters are going to have face the music as well. So if anybody has really a good, or even just bizarre, fear that they'd like to share with the class, it might just make it into the story.

Once again, I'm gonna ask about the story, _Cat and Mouse_. Yeah, I obsess easily. 

Jean felt horrible for screaming and even worse when she registered the look on Jamie's face, like a kicked puppy who didn't understand what he'd done wrong.

"I'm sorry." The words came out in a startled gasp almost before she'd finished screaming. Who they were directed at, the general occupants of the room for startling them, or Jamie specifically, was up for interpretation but her wide, green eyes, suddenly pale face, and deep, rapid breaths were currently taking priority over figuring it out.

She really hadn't meant to scream and probably wouldn't have if the circumstances had been ever so slightly different. She ran a hand through her fiery red hair, took a deep breath through her nose and, ignoring the six pairs of eyes she could feel pressing in on her, bent over and carefully picked up the little clown by her feet.

The doll was small, fitting snuggly in the palm of her hand. Its body was stiff but also soft, probably made out of some kind bean bag, the arms and legs stuffed with cotton and able to hang limply from the torso, giving the toy a little movement. Bright orange hair peeked out from beneath a colorful little hat that matched the cheerful blue and green overalls with little brass buttons and a matching bell. The china white face was made of porcelain with little green triangles painted over the eyes and ruby red lips, reminiscent of clowns from decades ago, putting one in mind of big tops and high-wires, rather than the less…intimidating ones that appear at children's birthday parties with balloon animals and cream pies.

Carefully averting her eyes from the little toy, she handed it back to the boy on the couch staring her with big, innocent, brown eyes that were on the verge of tears as he tried to figure out what he'd done wrong.

"I'm sorry," she said again, hanging her head contritely. The rest of the group had gathered around them, everyone staring at her with puzzled expressions but thankfully refraining asking any questions as they waited for her to explain. "I just-it was tangled up in the blanket and surprised me when it fell out is all. I, well, I just don't like clowns very much."

"I can…take him back upstairs…if you want," Jamie offered slowly, surprise still evident in his demeanor, even as he unconsciously hugged the creepy little thing under his chin.

"No," she said a little too quickly, feeling awful for making the already shy and awkward pre-teen that much less confident in his place at the Institute. "No, that's okay. I'll just…go make some coffee and be right back, alright." She smiled reassuringly and ruffled his hair affectionately as he nodded. She squeezed Scott's hand in an equally reassuring manner as she turned back toward the kitchen, glancing almost unwillingly at the sad face of the tiny clown on her way out. She crossed her arms over her chest to hide a shiver and bit her lip to keep from screaming again; she could _swear_ she saw it wink at her. 

"Well," Evan said, more to break the silence as everyone stared down the corridor Jean just disappeared into, "Sets the tone nicely, don't'cha think?"

Pietro chuckled lowly, shaking his head in obvious amusement, "Just like Tabitha. Once, when she was living at the boarding house, she found a spider on the floor in the kitchen. Lance could hear her screaming from the driveway. She actually jumped up on Fred's shoulder; he was standing behind her, and wouldn't come down. We had to chase the little thing around the kitchen and get it out of the house before she calmed down, still wouldn't set foot in the kitchen for a week, though."

"Thank you, Pietro, for that charming little anecdote," Kitty deadpanned putting an arm around Jamie who'd made a small sounding whimper in the back of his throat and hung his head. "Don't worry about it, Jamie; Jean just went to go get coffee. She's coming right back."

"I didn't mean to scare her."

"No one thinks ya meant to," Rogue soothed, a rare affectionate tone in her voice. She smirked as Evan ruffled his hair in a brotherly manner, making the boy wince and bat his hand away only to be blindsided by the other successfully distracted from his guilt at Jean's _Saw: The Continuing Saga _audition.

"Alright, enough, enough," Kitty insisted around her own laughter which was far less boisterous then participants of the impromptu wrestling match. "Let's get this show on the road."

"This game where you _try_ to scare yourselves?" Scott had never really been a master of subtly.

"Please," Kurt groaned, "Do not make them explain it again."

"Do you wanna play," Rogue offered, raising an eyebrow. "It might make more sense."

Scott didn't even have to consider the offer. Unlike the other ninety or so percent of the male population between the ages of thirteen and twenty-six, he didn't watch horror films; he watched comedies-maybe some action depending on the quality of the effects. He read almost as much as Kitty but preferred non-fiction and had special soft spot for Civil War biographies. The world behind his eyelids was often filled with plane crashes, visions of his little brother's head disappearing beneath the angry ocean, the trunk of the car closing over him when his foster parents locked him in…

Nightmares found him easily enough; he didn't need to create more.

_Neither_, he thought but knew he'd never say, _does Kurt_. He glanced uncertainly at the younger boy, thankful for once that he saw the world through rose-colored glasses and that the world could not see him at all. Kurt seemed to be into the whole idea, not nearly as absorbed as the others, but his wide golden eyes reflected the trademark Nightcrawler gin that was currently showing off his impressive fangs, and his ever-expressive tail was swinging back and forth playfully. Scott suspected, however, that his interest had more to do with Kitty's obvious enthusiasm than his own. Scott blinked and shook the matter off; after all, the blue boy always had been made of stronger stuff than he was.

"No thanks," a small smile settled across his face as he shook his head. "I think I'll just hang out here," he said, nodding toward the couch where Jean had returned with two mugs of coffee. She handed one, paled almost white with extra sugar and cream, to Jamie, a rare treat as he was still considered to be too young to drink it, and settled down beside him. She did, however, arrange herself noticeably away from the right corner of the table where Jamie had conspicuously positioned Candyman in order to avert any future surprises.

There was a group-full of shrugs and a muttered "Suit yourself," as the players began filing out of the room, Kitty in the lead, and down the corridor opposite the kitchen. Scott wondered what they could possibly have planned down there.

"You guys do know you can be literally scared to death, right?"

Rogue turned and called over her shoulder, "Yeah, it's called a heart attack."

-The clown doll, like many other bits and pieces of this story, is based on a real toy. My sister and I each got one from one of those little out-of-the-way markets that makes things like that by hand when I was little. We thought they were cute, but a friend of mine thought they were creepy and wouldn't come into our room unless both dolls were safely in the toy box. She said it felt like they were staring at her. If you've ever seen a picture of Dr Whiteface from Terry Prattchet's _Diskworld_ series, you've got a much more sinister idea of what they look like.

-_Saw: The Continuing Saga_, does anyone else think they ran with that idea just a little too far? And no, I didn't catch the _Star Wars _rip-off until after I'd already written it.

-Scott getting locked in the trunk is stolen directly from Bones. Dr. Brenen's foster parents locked her in the trunk of a car when she broke a dish. 


	7. Chapter 7

This was not the first time Pietro had entered the aptly named Danger Room, but it _was _the first time he'd ever really _seen _it. After all, taking on the quickly infamous Juggernaut certainly demands one's complete and undivided attention.

So he _knew_ that the room was littered with enough booby traps and security to make the Pentagon look exposed, and he vaguely recalled the somewhat daunting impression the cold metal walls, ceiling, and floor projected sharply at the mind, making one defensive and alert just walking through the door. Still, his murky half-recollections hardly did the formidable, almost dungeon-like chamber justice.

Words such as huge, colossal, gargantuan, cavernous, did not even begin to describe the sheer vastness of the X-men training room. The room itself gave off an aura of spaciousness, creating the illusion, perhaps, that it was bigger than it actually was, that there was more of the room than the mansion really had space for. The result was a feeling of smallness, like standing beside the ocean and realizing just how much of it there really is and how tiny you really are…

The metal walls provided a cold, sinister atmosphere that put one immediately on edge, chills dancing up and down the spine, the whole body ready for an attack. Even looking out over the expanse of physical training area locked safely behind the walls of cerebro, Pietro felt the adrenalin begin singing in his veins as his body prepared to defend itself.

The control room itself was fascinating: buttons, levers, wires all neatly dangling from a shiny steel panel that permeated the tiny chamber. Everything looked as if it had been taken from a Sci-fi movie with a particularly extravagant special effects budget. More than once he had caught himself looking over his shoulder expecting to find an alien or a cyborg lurking in the corner.

Out of impatiens or curiosity, he wasn't really sure which, he absently flicked an interesting looking switch on the board in front of him and spent a necessary handful of seconds staring at the resulting action. "Why do you guys even have a giant egg beater?"

"'Cause Logan's a sadist," Kurt muttered walking up beside him and flicking another switch seemingly at random which caused the two circulating rods the length of the hallway to freeze in mid-swing. The wider metal sheets at the tips slowed to a stop, and the rods folded back under the giant mechanism which in turn melted back into the floor. "Can I ask you a question?"

Momentarily caught off guard, Pietro just stared at the shorter boy for a moment. "I guess," he replied blinking. Then adding his famous half-smirk, "But don't be surprised if I don't bother to answer."

"Why are you here?"

Not quite understanding the question, the pale boy blinked again before responding in the only manner that came readily to mind, "I'm here to play the game."

Kurt shook his head slightly, barely enough to be a movement at all. "No, I got that part. And her," he said nodding toward Rogue, fingers busily abusing the keypad as she and Kitty worked to set up the suitable program. "I get. And _her_, I really get." This time he indicated Kitty, pausing long enough to return the childish gesture when she playfully stuck her tongue out at him. "Evan," he paused again, a more thoughtful look settling over his features as he considered the other boy leaning casually against the wall and following the conversation with obvious interest, "Evan I don't _get_ so much as eh, why not, but vas are _you_ doing here?"

This time Pietro smiled, blue eyes lit up and flashing with obvious amusement. Nodding in acknowledgment as the girls waved them over, "That's a long and complicated story involving cheese. Maybe I'll you about it later."

"Okay we're ready in here, just gotta press the button," Rogue announced to the crowd now assembled around her and Kitty, eyes never surfacing from the endless stream of code that was worse than gibberish to anyone who had not already spent gracious amounts of time and energy learning and perfecting it until it became a second language.

"So, how's this gonna work again?" Pietro looked skeptically through the glass to the big metal cavern below unable to really comprehend the potential this one room held.

"Rogue is gonna press this little button here," Evan pointed out a rather non-descript green button that could have been any of them as far as Pietro was concerned. "And that will start the simulation. All you have to do, Maximoff, is stand down there."

Pietro gave the training area one last cursory glance and shrugged, "Whatever you say." Then faster than the eye could fallow, he was on the Danger Room floor.

It couldn't have taken more than several seconds for the remaining four to locate him in the center of the floor below them. He _knew_ that, but to Pietro, who measured time in quarter and half-seconds, those seconds were a minor eternity. Finally a PA system came to life, and Kitty's voice spilled out around him.

"Alright, look up at us, please." In an uncharacteristic show of obedience, Pietro did as he was told and stared up into the glass windows surrounding the control room. He was too far below to see any details, but he could make out several shadows and passed the moments by trying to match a shadow to a person. "Okay, look around."

He blinked, and his whole world fell out from underneath him.

Where there had been pristine metal walls and ceiling, there was now…nothing. Empty air settled between the space around him and the floor. Closer inspection revealed the patch of floor he'd been commandeering so recently had also faded, replaced by an unfamiliar stone walkway, reaching from one wall to the next, about the width of a sidewalk. But the important part was that it was now hundreds of feet above the floor.

His cheeks cooled rapidly as he felt the blood drain from his face. His mind, usually all over the place as nothing trapped in within normal space/time parameters could really mange to hold his attention, was suddenly empty and sharply focused. His heartbeat, already accelerated to begin with, began increasing in an attempt to keep pace with his already elevated levels of adrenalin. He could hear it in his ears, the natural rhythm abandoned in favor of the erratic panic his body was experiencing.

His pulse throbbed in his forehead and he could feel sweat running down his face, stinging his eyes. His breathing increased to almost hyperventilation trying to satisfy his racing heart's demand for oxygen, but his chest constricted in an effort to get his permanently overworked systems to _slow down_.

He couldn't breathe. His jaw dropped open, pulling in as much air as possible, but his lungs refused to expand to take it in. His throat burned, and his chest ached, his throbbing heart _screamed _for oxygen, but he _couldn't breathe_.

The room began to shake in quick violent bursts of motion. It took him a moment to realize it was not the room, but him; his whole body breaking out into erratic shivers so fast he was actually vibrating as it tried to force his lungs to accept the air it needed.

Inelegantly he dropped to his knees, hoping to take a little of the stress off his hyperactive body, but that just brought him closer to edge of the walkway. So far down, so very far…

His head grew foggy, misty blackness creeping along the edges of his vision, his pulse jumped almost painfully behind his ears, his lungs could not pull in enough air, and it was such a long way down. All he could see and think, _Such a long, long fall…_

"Okayokay," he yelled, his voice desperate, panicky. "Callitoffcallitoffcallitoff!"

And the floor was back, just under his knees, as he knew it must have been the whole time. Shaky fingers, shaky not vibrating, reached out and gently tapped the floor, as if he expected it to melt away at his touch. It was cool against his hot fingertips, a soft, dull _thunk_ resounding from the easy rap of his fingers.

-The giant eggbeater actually comes from one the first episodes, _Rogue Recruit _I think. Logan was going through the Danger Room when my sister walked in, stared at the screen for a second and said, "Is that a giant eggbeater?"

-'measured time in quarter and h-seconds', I don't really have an excuse or parameters for this one other than in the episode where he and Evan show up, he mentions that making his costume took about a quarter second.


	8. Chapter 8

Gah, sorry this chapter took so long to get up. It was a combination of moving, a really bad internet connection, and a not-exactly crippling case of writers block.

I'm still in need of some interesting fear suggestions as I will be introducing some actual plot (Gasp really?!) here in the next few chapters. And as I mentioned once before, constructive criticism is accepted and appreciated, especially now that my sister, and second-toughest critic, is now over 3,000 miles away. Sigh.

Anyway, I hope it proves to be worth the wait. 

It was almost funny when he thought about it. He'd run straight up the sides of buildings before, just out of sheer boredom; he was in perpetual need of something to entertain himself with. He'd found himself suspended in midair, courtesy of the local telekinetic to keep his quick feet away the ground, more times than even he cared to count. Hell, he loved flying; airplanes were the one thing, manmade or natural, that moved almost as fast as he did.

But when he did those things he had something else he could focus on. The stretch and release of his muscles, his counter attack, the messy blur of the world as he left it behind, the rush of air on his face and through his hair…but here, there was nothing but him and the impossible space between where he stood and the ground. _Such a long, long fall…_

"Fifteen seconds." Rogue's thick southern accent drawled through the PA system and echoed around the empty metal room, dragging him away from his scattered musings.

Fifteen seconds alone with himself and his fear.

It didn't sound like very much, and certainly paled in comparison to the full minute both Kitty and Rogue had achieved, but still he was proud of himself. The feeling was different then the constant pulse of his admittedly oversized ego. This was a slight tightening in his chest and a quick jolt through his body, sending little tingles along his skin. For the first time he could remember, he felt as if he really had accomplished something. What he wasn't entirely sure, but he knew he'd have plenty of time to figure it out.

Effortlessly, his lips curled into something that was half his usual self-satisfied, arrogant smirk and half a genuine smile, as he turned to face the audience watching him form on high. "No wonder you guys beat us all the time."

And then the ice was broken because the others were suddenly in front of him in cloud of sulfurous smoke, the telltale **Bamph **already lost in the intertwining stream of babble and laughter that even he couldn't decipher. But that was alright because Rogue was standing right in front of him, lips curved into something that was definitely not a thin line even if it wasn't really a smile. Her eyes sparkled approvingly, the unusual grey almost silver in the cold metallic light-

"What the hell are you doing in here?"

The voice demanding an explanation from the gathered teenagers boomed from the enclosed doors of cerebro above them and didn't even need the assistance of the intercom to be heard in the dormant training area below. Pietro had never spent much time at the Xavier Institute despite his sorted visits, but it didn't take extended exposure to _know_ that Wolverine was far more frightening than anything the Danger Room could conjure up.

In spite of herself, Rogue felt her own chest tighten just a little in concern when she saw the hyperactive mutant spill to his knees on the illusion of a stone walkway. She wasn't certain what he had expected of the Danger Room, pride of both Logan and Scott, bane of everyone else's existence. Whatever he had been prepared for, it hadn't been such a realistic and unnerving illusion.

Rogue knew as well as all of the X-men how deceptive the simulations of their training room could be; how the images were so strong sometimes one could smell the smoke from a fire that didn't exist, feel the heat from molten rock that wasn't there.

Irrationally, she felt a twinge of pity for the outsider who couldn't possibly have understood what the technology that went into the creation of the training area was really capable of. But then…this was all just an illusion, completely controlled by herself and the others. One touch of the little green button in front of Kitty, barely even a flex of her finger, and it all went away. The rat that had crawled up Kitty's arm, and the snake that Rogue had unintentionally let loose in the mansion had both been very, very real.

And the barest hint of movement on Kitty's part did just as Rogue predicted when Pietro's frantic pleas for salvation began ringing out through the room, bouncing off the metal walls and echoing through the air.

"Fifteen seconds," Rogue announced into the speaker as soon as the simulation had been terminated.

Fifteen seconds, he hadn't even hit the halfway mark. But then sometimes perception in the most important factor, and Rogue knew from personal experience that Pietro's perception of time was not the same as her own, or anyone else's for that matter. And when one lived as fast Pietro did, fifteen seconds really was longer than it sounded.

The point was apparently moot, however, because when he turned back to cerebro, his mouth was curved upwards. Not the typical condescending slight curl of his lips but not a full out grin either, something in between. It suited him, and she found herself hoping to see it more often. "No wonder you guys beat us all the time."

For some reason the statement was absolutely hysterical, laughter resounding throughout the small control room. Kurt, without being asked, made contact with everyone, his wondering tail already wrapped contently around Kitty's wrist, his hand finding Evan's shoulder, his flexible foot effortlessly reaching out to rest against Rogue's boot covered shin. Then there was nothing but a **Bamph **whispering through her ears and the lingering smell of sulfur before the group found themselves on the familiar floor that so often spelled their theatrical demise all attempting to talk and laugh at the same time and creating a new language in the process. A stream of indecipherable chatter draped around the group as they all tried to calm down enough to actually talk about the what had happened.

"What the hell are you doing in here?" A voice all generations of X-men had learned to know and fear when there was no chance it had been directed at anyone else. An abrupt silence landed bodily over them as their mirth quickly changed to cold dread. Logan did not sound happy.

Not that he ever really did, but that was hardly the point.

A rush of air that wanted to be a sigh escaped Kurt's lips. "Grab on everybody, best not to keep him waiting." Exaggerated groans issued forth from several mouths, including her own. Frankly, she'd rather face another snake. 

Five mouths released a silent sigh of relief as soon as the smoke cleared; Logan, it seemed, had not stumbled upon them by coincidence. Professor Xavier's wheelchair sat sedately beside the eerily calmly fuming Wolverine. His hands rested on the arms of the chair with long familiarity and he eyed the young mutants, not with anger and not-attempted-to-be concealed annoyance as did his counterpart, but serene curiosity and concern. As always, his presence, though always calm and reassuring, seemed to permeate the area, too big to be contained by the wheelchair and the loss of his legs.

Kitty stepped forward uncertainly, the unspoken and unanimous liaison of the group given the current circumstances. Logan had long ago been given the codename Wolverine, and the moniker could not have suited him better. His reputation was well deserved, and he made a point of preserving it. It was, however, no secret, much to the gruff Canadian's chagrin, that he had a soft spot for the 'Half-pint'.

"Okay, so it's like this."

The next ten minutes or so were spent with Kitty quietly, but confidently explaining to their unexpected audience the ins and outs of the game they had started, ending with, "And we couldn't very well, like, knock him off a real building or something so we like thought we'd, like, test out Forges new programming system." Both teachers had remained quiet and attentive throughout Kitty's explanation and five pairs of nervous but expectant eyes now watched them carefully for a reaction.

Logan growled deep in his throat and his trademark glare indicated he was not amused, causing the whole assembly to flinch back instinctively. Still all eyes found their way to the professor. His, everyone knew, would be the final word on the matter.

His fingers had steepled over his mouth at some point during the story, and he leaned forward in his chair, resting his weight on his elbows and obviously deep in thought. Finally he released a resigned sigh, "I think I can allow you to continue your game," he raised a hand against the thankful chatter that immediately began bubbling through the room, "But I do not want you activating the Danger Room without supervision. In the future inform someone about your plans. Understood?" A series of nods and "Yes sirs" followed his instructions.

"And I want you all to be careful. Keep in mind that fear, especially forced, _can _cause real psychological damage. And that will not be easily repaired." The chorus of promises and assurances was tempered by Pietro's soft chuckle and clap on his longtime rival's shoulder.

"That's alright, it's Daniels' turn, and, if I remember correctly, he has the most amusing reaction to blood." 

-'When one lived as fast as Pietro did', I took that almost word for word from the episode where he and Evan make their first appearance.


	9. Chapter 9

Don't get used to quick updates. I assure you this will not happen often.

The blade of the knife was thin and flimsy, obviously made of cheep, carbonized steel. But it glinted ominously in the half-light, the sharpened edge flashing almost eagerly as it easily sliced the pale, unprotected flesh.

Its careful descent across the upturned palm was slow and deliberate, all the evidence Evan needed to be perfectly certain that Pietro was thoroughly enjoying this.

The torn skin and muscle was only just beginning to leak the dark, red liquid just below the index finger where the blade had first bitten the soft tissue. The tiny bead of thick, red fluid began slowly sliding down the flat plain of the upturned palm, running perpendicular to the thin diagonal line the knife was slicing gently, almost lovingly across the offered flesh.

The deep fissure began filling and overfilling with little pearls of bright red as the severed capillaries spilled their essence into the tiny wound. And still the blade was only halfway finished with its morbid task.

"30 seconds."

He could smell it. The sour, salty, rusty tang invaded his nostrils and coated his throat. He blinked slowly, squeezing his eyes painfully against the woozy, dizzying sensation trying to force him into unconsciousness; to escape, if nothing else, that permeating, cloying smell. His throat felt tight and heavy as he forced himself to swallow focusing on the little steel knife as it bit into Pietro's smooth, uncalloused palm, rather than the thin oozing red trail it left behind.

Too soon it reached the end of the available surface, a deep diagonal line marring the previously perfect palm. Its purpose fulfilled, the knife was laid aside, and Pietro took the opportunity to clench his hand into a half-fist, forcing the thick liquid out faster, coating his hand with several little rivets of red.

The sharp odor, bitter and sweet and metallic, lent strength by that minuscule action, assaulted his senses, and he felt his stomach tying itself in knots, suddenly preparing to empty itself of anything that might hinder him in a fight or flight situation. Sweat collected along his brow, dripping lazily down the sides of his face and soaking the back of his neck. The collar of his loose, sleeveless shirt was steadily growing tight and confining, and he valiantly resisted the urge to tug at the front to loosen its suffocating grip on his throat.

"45 seconds," Rogue announced, her prominent drawl a welcome, if brief, distraction.

The thin rivulets of thick red liquid reached the base of Pietro's hand and began to drip.

Drip…drip…drip…

…The blood was warm and wet, a tiny pool forming on the back of hand, just below his knuckles…

…Drip…drip…drip…

"Bag this!" He almost tripped over the chair he'd been sitting in, knocking it over in his explosive transition from sitting to standing, and standing to moving as he scrambled across the room to the thankfully plastic wastebasket Kitty kept beside her desk.

Bile coated his throat and mouth, the sour sick taste clinging to his tongue as he dry heaved into the various crumbled papers and candy wrappers already occupying the impromptu basin.

Distantly, beneath the deafening roar in his ears,, the telltale erratic gasp and release of air indicated that someone, Pietro probably, was enjoying himself immensely.

Evan coughed and mentally grasped a the bright side. At least he hadn't fainted.

- 'he felt his stomach tying itself in knots, suddenly preparing to empty itself of anything that might hinder a fight/flight situation.' This is a real bodily reaction. It's more common in small mammals and reptiles, but it also occurs in the human body. When the fight or flight reaction is triggered the body will sometimes expel any excess food or weight that might slow its reaction time. A lizard, for example, will throw up a recent meal if it feels threatened to make escaping easier.


	10. Chapter 10

**Okay, I hope someone out there appreciates this; you have no idea the problems the site gave me trying to post it.**

**Wanda narrowed her eyes at the little coffee grinder which should have begun whirring and crunching as it ground the dark-roast beans of her favorite brand ten seconds ago when she pressed the quarter-sized silver button with ON/Off written in neat, white letters that could be easily read from across the room. But the cheap, portable appliance remained dormant and mutinously silent. Clicking her tongue, a habit she had embarrassingly picked up from Fred, although, if asked she would pointedly deny it, she pressed the button again and peered through the clear plastic lid on the off chance she had over-filled the flimsy, pathetic excuse for a machine and the blades were getting stuck.**

**The beans didn't even jump. The stupid thing wasn't turning on.**

**A sound of frustration ran through her throat and jumped from her lips as she slammed her fist against the counter, jarring the useless grinder as well as the bag of coffee and small camping pot she preferred over the standard drip setting on the opposite counter. Scowling slightly, she dropped to her hands and knees to make sure the plug hadn't been fallen out of the socket. **

**No, it was still snuggly tucked into the wall. She pulled it out and examined the other end. It seemed fine to her admittedly limited expertise, so did the socket. Clicking her tongue **_**and**_** groaning in frustration she replaced the plug, jamming it in with a little more force than was probably necessary, before reaching back up to the counter above her head and groping around blindly for the grinder. It wasn't hard to find the correct button, it was after all designed for anyone between the age of nine and ninety to be able to use, and the quick jab with her thumb produced, to her growing expectations, absolutely nothing.**

**She slammed her fist against the floor with another irritated groan before straightening up to sit on her knees and sighing resignedly. The electricity was picky in this place. **

**Uncrossing her arms, she waved a vague gesture at the occupied socket and didn't bother to suppress the small self-satisfied smile that crossed her face when the grinder whirred to life.**

**She turned toward the living room at the sound of several sharp raps in quick succession filtering into the kitchen, indicating someone either stupid or lost was at the front door. She decided to let one of the boys get it and get on with her coffee preparations before the pounding resounded again, somewhat more aggressively this time, and she realized she was likely the only one who'd actually made it downstairs yet.**

**Grumbling about men and their inherent laziness and apparent inability to be of any use whatsoever, she swung open the door without really bothering to see who was there. "What?!"**

"**Hey Miss Scarlett," Evan smiled brightly and offered a slight wave. "Can Pietro come out and play?" **

**She managed, barely, to suppress the urge to roll her eyes, knowing it would only encourage him. She groaned inwardly, beginning to develop definite ideas about how the rest of the day was going to go. Evan, in his own way, was worse than Toad.**

**He'd never given her any elaborate speeches or loud proclamations of affection, but it wasn't necessary. It was the way he grinned childishly every time he saw her. The way he perpetually seemed to be, against all logic, happy to see her. The way he carried on as if they were still friends. As if her banishment to the mental institution hadn't changed anything, hadn't changed her. **

**Like his insistent use of that stupid childhood nickname, proof that he remembered a time when he really could fix all her problems with a bag of Peache-o's and a sloppy kiss on the cheek. Sometimes she got the impression that he believed his roll remained the same even if his methods had changed.**

**And what really got on her nerves was how comforting she found his commitment to their childhood relationship. How deeply she craved the comfort and familiarity he constantly offered.**

**Instead of getting into all of that, even with herself, she fixed him with one of her hardest glares and offered a flat, "Don't call me that."**

**Evan, however, casually ignored the tone and smiled indulgingly at the harshness of her face, shrugging at her demand. "Whatever. So is he coming out or am I coming in?"**

**Raising a skeptical eyebrow, she crossed her arms and narrowed her eyes, offering no indication either way. "When did you two kiss and make up?"**

**All this earned her was a stifled chuckle, hastily disguised as a snort. "Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Miss Scarlett," he informed her, black eyes sparkling playfully, "Stick to flat out spite." He smiled at the offended growl she barely managed to stifle in the back of her throat, "And we're not friends; we've just recently adopted the same social circle."**

**Wanda sighed irritably and rolled her eyes heavenward as if begging for assistance. A cheerful Evan was just more than her poor caffeine deprived mind could handle this early in the morning. Much worse than Toad. At least he lived with her, Evan went out of his way to drive her crazy.**

**When none was forthcoming she turned and stomped back toward the kitchen screaming as loud as her lungs would allow, "Pietro! Get your ass down here now!" **

**Before the words had even fully left her mouth the wind picked up behind and then in front of her. The rapid change in a air pressure and direction knocked her slightly off-balance, and although she should have been expecting it, the surprise at seeing her brother suddenly appearing right in front of her, hadn't helped. She hated the startled gasp that left her throat, and was even more put out when she felt her feet tangle up with his, ensuring that she was going to end up on her butt.**

**Just as she'd begun toppling over, however, a hand latched onto her wrist and jerked upright in one smooth continuous motion. **

**Angry, embarrassed, and in desperate need of caffeine, she let out a frustrated scream and jerked her hand out of Pietro's grip, glaring at him as if the domino affect of her morning was directly related to him. **

**She caught the hurt look that passed his features, but ignored it as she'd done with every other pained glance sent in her direction and any attempt on his part to make the relationship between them civil at best. In any case, he lived up to his boastings, the expression gone almost before she'd even seen it, his features already arranged into the carefully neutral, shy look her always wore around her. "What did I do now?" **

"**Nothing yet," she said, voice defiantly holding more of scream to than she wanted it to, but at the moment she really couldn't bother herself with worrying about it. "But you'd better get your crazy not-friend out of here before I make something up." **

**The neutral expression melted into one of vague confusion. "My what?"**

"**I think she means me," Evan replied from the spot he'd taken up residence in on the bottom step, apparently deciding since she'd neglected to slam the door in his face that he was allowed to come inside. **

"**Oh, hi," Pietro greeted off-handedly. "How long have you been here?"**

**Again with that infernal casual shrug, "Couple minutes. Kurt and the girls are waiting in the car." He smirked playfully and waved a hand, "Don't rush on my account, I'm kinda enjoying the novelty of waiting on the infamous Quicksilver." **

"**I can appreciate the irony."**

"**Heh, nice phrase airhead."**

**That was it. The causal teasing and insults were too easy, too familiar. It was more than her limited patients could handle...**

"**OUT!**" she erupted, practically shaking with ill-concealed rage, pointing stiffly at the still open door and too keyed up to even be properly pleased with herself concerning the amount of self-control she was currently displaying by keeping her powers in check. "**BOTH OF YOU JUST GET OUT!**"

Pietro never really had been able to keep his thoughts to himself even in the most desperate situations, and this had yet to qualify. Even as he moved, albeit slowly…for him at least…to obey her furious demand he muttered quietly to Evan or perhaps himself as he passed, "Now _that's _scary."

She was about to hex him in tracks demanding an explanation, but sometime during the exchange Evan had moved from his seat at the bottom of the staircase and taken up residence at her side. She didn't know how he always moved so quietly; he should not have been able to sneak up on her at all, let alone when he'd been right in front of her the whole time.

The gentle pressure against her cheek was, as always, soft and fleeting, lasting barely long enough for her to register what had happened. And, as always, the intentionally childish display of affection had caught her completely off-guard, even though she knew she should have been expecting it.

By the time she had recovered, Evan was already halfway down the hall. Half-turning, he tossed a cheerful, "See ya later Miss Scarlett!" over his shoulder as he fallowed Pietro through the living room. The front door creaked loudly as it swung leisurely closed behind them but not before she caught a glimpse of the taller boy lightly smacking Evan on the back of his head. 

-A lot of this chapter, such as Evan's repeated referrals to Wanda as 'Miss Scarlett' relates back to a one-shot I recently posted called _Third Grade Kisses_. It's not necessary to read it, but it helps explain the dynamics of the Evan/Wanda/Pietro interactions. Plus I said in an earlier chapter I'd write it, so I did.

-'smacking Evan on the back of the head.' Gibbs Slap! Points if you know what that means.

Quick note: I was going over a few of the chapters and some mental notes I have for later ones, and I realized that I'm not actually adhering to any particular time-line. I also seem to ignoring a few somewhat major events that took place on the show. As it is, however, I can't fix any of that without changing the entire basis of the story, so I'll do my best to explain inconsistencies when I catch them, and if I don't or you don't understand my explanations, just ask and I'll be happy to clear it up.

Kurt's up next. I promise!


	11. Chapter 11

**The X-van was not the kind of car soccer moms use to drop their kids off at practice or school. It may have at one time been distantly related to such vehicles as mini-vans and SUVs but evolution had stepped in somewhere along the line and now the only remaining resemblance to the more mundane automobiles cruising the streets was in the barely noticeable icon located just above the back bumper that proclaimed it was, in fact, a van. With wheels that came up to Kurt's waist and doors a VW Bug could drive through, the transportation they had borrowed seemed to be some crossbreed of a Hummer and a Jeep with a little bit of a '53 Chevy truck somewhere in the middle. It looked military issue.**

**Kurt, however, was fairly certain that this was the kind of vehicle the military had taken one look at and quietly returned before discreetly shutting down any operation pertaining to it and destroying the blueprints on the grounds of public safety.**

**It was hard to miss the X-van. Possible of course, as all things are, but it required a monumental effort of will, slight meditation, and, more often than not, some form of chemical intervention. Beyond the unavoidable attention the 'Tank', as it was fondly referred to by the students, inadvertently attracted the monstrosity was actually fairly difficult to drive. It was big and bulky, not quite fitting in the lanes or parking spaces like it should, and made seeing anything smaller than a '92 Suburban difficult if not damn near impossible, and pedestrians were taking their lives into their own hands. That wasn't even factoring in all the potential explosives or other such weapons a mere shift in weight might accidentally set off. These hazards kept even an experienced driver just a little less concerned with what was going on on the road and more so with where he/she was putting his/her hands, and while the Tank could come of a collision with a semi without a scratch, whatever it hit was likely to be scrape metal.**

**All of this made most of students somewhat reluctant to drive it for such mundane reasons as school or work…or really anything short of the apocalypse, but Rogue didn't actually mind driving Frankenstein's SUV provided the roads were fairly slow and any passengers remained absolutely silent. Besides, if they borrowed Scott's perpetually new Mustang they'd have to listen to a three hour lecture on car maintenance and responsible driving, and by the end he still might decide not hand over the keys. **

**So the resulting ride was quiet and relaxed, everyone trying to keep the distractions and tension to a minimum. Kurt felt a little sorry for Pietro in the front passenger seat, who was uncomfortable with keeping still for any length of time and simply couldn't help fidgeting within ten seconds closing the door. This kept him continually in Rogue's line of fire between screaming stress relieving obstinacies at the other motorists who had the nerve to be on the road at the same time she was. Still, he seemed to be alright, even pleased with the arrangements, obediently settling down when she snapped, threatened, or glared at him if only to start again after a few seconds.**

**Evan was sprawled out across the back, possibly asleep which was the most effective way to avoid ending up in Rogue's cross-hairs while she was behind the wheel…provided there was no snoring, but Kurt wasn't curious enough to check. That was the nice thing about catching a ride in the Tank, there was always plenty of space to spare.**

**He and Kitty were currently sharing the middle seat. She was curled up under the driver's side window, the seat spacious enough that she could arrange her legs comfortably beneath her. He was less elegantly draped over the middle of the seat, but that only brought his knee close enough to 'accidentally' brush against hers when they hit a bump in the road or a turn. **

**He hadn't bothered with his image inducer because it needed to charge for good eight hours if he wanted a full battery, and no one except possibly Superman could see through the tinted windows anyway. So he was unnaturally thankful for the blue fur that hid what was undoubtedly a dark red blush staining his cheeks when he realized exactly where his tail had ended up.**

**It was draped contentedly across Kitty's waist, and Kurt had no idea how to move it without attracting her attention. Oh sure, he knew his tail got up to its own business when his mind was otherwise occupied, and entangling itself around whatever part of Kitty happened to most easily accessible was a favorite pastime. This, however, was not on the same level as grasping hold of her wrist or ankle; this was far more intimate and defiantly in danger of crossing the 'just friends' line in the sand. **

**After his initial panic over the situation, he assumed, logically, that if Kitty was offended or uncomfortable she would have said something; after all, she must have noticed. But then it occurred to him that she really might **_**not **_**say anything for fear of offending or embarrassing him; it wasn't exactly a secret that he was cripplingly self-conscious, especially when it came to his tail ending up in places he didn't necessarily mean for it to be. Finally he settled on just untangling it and stuttering embarrassed apologies.**

**But Kitty gently stilled his efforts, looking up him with a shy smile. "I don't mind, Kurt." She averted her eyes shyly, her own blush lightly dusting her cheeks, "It's kinda nice."**

**He smiled widely, showing off his fangs, and he swore he felt his eyes light up at the comment. "Ja?" **

**His smile widened, if that were possible, at her affirming nod and shyly giggled, "Yeah." So he allowed his tail to do as it pleased, curling it comfortably back into place.**

**He never thought he'd hear anyone, least of all Kitty, say anything remotely close to that except Amanda. **

**Amanda…It was so easy to pretend that all the mess between them hadn't happened here, so close to Kitty, when she looked him with that sweet, warm smile that reminded him of why he had fallen in love with her in the first place.**

**And that had been the problem. Kurt had long ago given up on the idea of a romantic relationship with Kitty, instead choosing to remain her friend. He could do that, he was sure; he would be the very best friend she ever had, and as long as he succeeded in that it would be enough. **

**But it hadn't been. Humans are social creatures; they crave the comfort of being held and wanted and loved and touched, need the security and affection of a mate that they can love and that will love them in return. Kurt was no exception. And when Amanda came along, offering all of those things, all of the things that Kitty wouldn't give him, Kurt pushed those feelings down as deep as he could and locked them away. He then devoted **_**all**_** his feelings toward Amanda and buried everything else so far beneath them that he could very nearly forget they had ever existed at all, tricking himself into believing he'd been in love with her all along.**

**But Amanda had caught the little details, the minuscule inconstancies, even when he hadn't. It made so much sense when they broke up, when he heard the words out loud, the last line of her goodbye being, "Don't wait too long to tell her." **

**He had **_**used**_** her to get away from his unrequited feelings for Kitty. And he'd done it so innocently, so **_**nicely**_**, that she didn't even hold it against him. But he had done it just the same, something he hadn't previously thought himself capable of, and it made him feel sick inside whenever he thought about it.**

**But all of that was unimportant and far away because right now Kitty was awkwardly lacing her fingers through his, the resulting knot of their hands resting comfortably on her lap, and, as far as Kurt was concerned, all was right with the world. **

**The easy, if tense, atmosphere depleted somewhat as soon as the Tank pulled up to the Caves, but they may have only been his imagination. The Caves were a complex system of interlocking natural tunnels and caverns that wound through the entirety of the mountains. The city had turned them into an almost underground park about halfway up the central mountain with tours and trails in an effort to make it wildlife preserve. They had taken a field trip once, for biology, to see the bats in the main cavern which was where they all knew it from. Most of the tunnels branched off into open caves, the most famous being toward the center where the walls were covered in purple crystals. But some of them were simply dead ends or led to sudden drops or caves so small they were really considered to be holes more than anything.**

**And that was why they had made the trip. Kurt's fear was a little difficult to explain, even to himself, because it was actually composed of several factors. It wasn't claustrophobia because he mostly didn't mind small, confined places, generally finding them to effective hiding places when a joke had gone too far or Kitty was taking Home Ec (again) because he, unlike a majority of people, could get into them. And caves were interesting, throwing light in fascinating and beautiful ways or swallowing it all together, housing all kinds of wonderful life forms one will never see above ground. He didn't mind dirt, provided he could get a shower in the near future, and he actually quite liked insects, hoping perhaps to study entomology in college.**

**What it was, was the combination, the tight confinement of the hole, the smell of dirt all around him and feeling of it clumping in his hair. The dirty stone walls all around him, the faint musty, wet smell of earth and water and roots, the bugs crawling around and over him, the crinkling of their legs and wings echoing in his ears…**

**Alone any of these factors was mildly uncomfortable at best, but together, even in an unbalanced or generic manner, they sent him back to the summer when he was three years old, playing outside where he wasn't supposed to be. The ground giving out beneath his feet, the sharp, wet CRACK** of his leg snapping when he hit the bottom. Looking up and not seeing the sky…

He'd tried to call for help, but nobody had been around to hear him scream; he was supposed to wait in the house until his parents got back from town. It had been hours before anyone found him…

He turned as Rogue jerked the keys from the ignition and smiled playfully at Kitty before disappearing in cloud of smoke, only to reappear a breath later outside her door. He pulled the door open with a half-bow and, grinning in a way that contrasted with his gentlemanly behavior, offered his hand, "Let the games begin!" 

-'Scott's perpetually new Mustang.' Anyone else ever notice how often that car gets destroyed? Or how the size, make, and model change every few episodes?

-'other motorists who had the nerve to be on the road at the same time she was.' A phrase my sister and I are both quite familiar with; "If I'm on the road, you shouldn't be."

-About Amanda: I dislike Amanda on the grounds of disliking anyone with Kurt who isn't Kitty and honestly believe the show could have done without her, whether she was an important character in the comics or not, since her only purpose was as a love interest for Kurt and she only appeared in two or three episodes. That being said, I also think she gets kind of a bad rap in the fanfiction community, more often than not being portrayed as a winy little brat, or twisted, self-centered sociopath with 'freak fetish', and all of this is entirely possible as there was never really any character development on the show. That also being said, I think that she really does like Kurt just because he's Kurt, not in spite of the fur and not because of it. After all, she said she liked him before, which was probably why she'd been watching him in the first place. All of _that_ being said, I wanted Amanda out of the picture without portraying her as a villain. Sorry Amanda-haters, had to do it.

-'very best friend she ever had.' Believe it or not, I took that from the Jacob/Bella Twilight community. Proud member of Team Jacob!

-'Don't wait too long to tell her.' Another Gilmore Girls rip-off. It's what Rachel said to Luke when she left town for the last time.

-'The Caves.' Anyone ever been Laurel Caverns? Me neither but it's where I got the idea.


	12. Chapter 12

The Caves were almost always open to the public, and they extended throughout the entirety of the local mountain range, so it was never very hard to get in. It was, however, required that all groups of no less than twelve, no more than twenty, were escorted by an experienced guide to prevent any accidents or disorientation once inside. Avoiding such precautions was considerably more difficult, but not impossible. Especially if one avoids the main entrance altogether.

The explosive **BAMPH **that always fallowed a reentry echoed eerily in and out of the dozen or so tunnels that branched off of the main cavern, while at the same time was swallowed by a continuous stream of chatter swirling around the cavern in quick high-pitched bursts. The walls were high, almost cathedral-like and wet with condensation. The floor was unnaturally warm, and soft, and _squishy_, sucking down at Kurt's feet like quicksand, and he mentally cursed his oddly shaped paw-like feet, that made any sort of footwear impossible, in every language he could think of. The lingering scent of sulfur had been instantly overpowered by the pungent fumes expelled from the cave floor. This was because the ceiling, impossibly high above their heads, was wriggling and moving, alive with bats.

"Why'd you bring us _here_, Kurt?" Kitty demanded, her platform sandals not fairing much better than his own bare feet.

He shrugged and tried to smile as he gripped her upper arm just above her elbow in an effort to keep her from toppling over into the sludge, but it turned out as more of a grimace, "I remembered it from the Bio field trip."

Evan nodded in recollection, trying to pull his own feet out of the odorous goop without losing his shoes and covering his nose with the front of his shirt against the distinctive sour _reek _of waste and detritus, "Gotta love Doc. Oliver and those visual aids."

"I remember that one," Rogue commented thoughtfully, much more at ease than the rest of them, the greedy muck not standing a chance against her high-laced, heavy combat boots. "It was actually pretty cool."

"Yeah, well," Pietro muttered disgustedly, shooting Kurt a sidelong glare as his feet were swallowed by the mud, "It's a lot more interesting when you have the proper equipment. Like…waders or something." His petulant tone went charitably unnoticed, Kurt understanding that slick or soft surfaces, anything that made running difficult or impossible, put Quicksilver on edge. And it certainly didn't help that he knew exactly what made up the ooze that was currently making an admirable attempt to eat his shoes.

Kurt breathed through his mouth and tried not to think about the fact that his own feet didn't even have shoes to lose. "Grab on everyone, I can see a ledge from here."

The ledge was just inside an adjacent tunnel, mercifully dry, but deceptively colder, the heat seeping the up through the decaying waste and remains, as well as given off by the bats themselves due to their sheer numbers, suddenly lost. A quick glance around revealed the tunnel to be reasonably bare, vacant of even the odd and beautiful natural stone structures littered throughout the majority of the cavern systems. Kurt assumed it had probably been fairly empty to begin with and had later been further cleared for use as a hallway between the main cavern and its branching tunnels. He uselessly scraped his feet against the floor anyway, relieved when he noticed he was not alone in his efforts.

A closer inspection revealed that it was also, by a fortunate coincidence, exactly where they needed to be.

The fissure was small, barely a gap in the side of the drop-off, just under the floor of the ledge. There was perhaps enough space for a small person to squeeze into, and even then movement would severely restricted, the odd almost cup-like shape of the break in the rock preventing all but the most miniscule of motions. It wasn't particularly deep, certainly no more so than the deep-end of the public pool, but the eerie half-light of the cave was swallowed not far from the lip, and Kitty couldn't see the bottom.

"Wow," Pietro murmured, clearly unnerved by the short-cut unexpectedly offered to them. They had anticipated wandering through the tunnels for some time before stumbling onto a hole with the required properties for Kurt's turn. "You're good."

Kurt snorted at his comment striking yellow eyes now alight with amusement as well as apprehension, as he turned to address his sister, "So you'll start the timer what, when I get in, when I hit the bottom…"

She didn't respond immediately. She was chewing on her lip and watching Kurt thoughtfully. Kitty recognized that look; it was the same sisterly, concerned expression the other girl had pinned her with while insisting she examine the scratches the rat left on her neck. "Are we…sure this is a good idea?"

Kurt cocked his head slightly in an adorable visual of confusion, but Kitty understood exactly what her friend meant. Just a short time ago this had seemed like such a simple, obvious solution, but now that they were here…

"Second thoughts, man," Evan echoed, giving the steadily growing feelings of tension and doubt a voice. "I mean, just how stable is that thing?"

Kurt hadn't really given much thought to any possible hazards that might rear their ugly heads during his test against his fear. In retrospect he supposed he probably should have; the Caves kept their strict visitor regulations for a reason after all. At the same time, however, he didn't really believe the city could keep the tourist attraction afloat if it wasn't, for the most part, safe. He said as much, the calm, persuasive tones in his voice overlaying his own anxiousness concerning the situation.

"Yeah," Kitty replied, her grip on his arm tightening slightly, "It's the 'for the most part' line that's, like, worrying us."

"This is different than tossin' Pietro in the Danger Room, or letting' a snake loose in the house," Rogue stated, anxious authority seeping into her voice, "Or even Pietro slicin' his hand open with pocket knife. Those were all controlled situations, nothin' we couldn't maintain or change if we needed to."

"We don't have that level of control here, Kurt," Evan, oddly enough took over as the Voice of Reason, "Don't know why, but that didn't really hit anyone till just now. It's makin' us all a little…nervous."

Kurt smiled widely, his fangs catching even the almost-nonexistent cave light, and glanced around the half-circle that had formed around the little cavity. "C'mon guys, the odds of anything other than getting dripped on with the condensation from on the walls are not high. And on the off-chance something _does _happen, I can teleport."

Kitty shot him a weary look and shook her head slightly, all too aware of how panic and terror can affect actions, how little impact thought may have against the baser survival instincts.

"Why can't we just do this in the Danger Room?" Pietro asked, glancing uncertainly at the crack in the rock, "Ya know, like I did. I mean we just need supervision, right?"

Kurt sighed, not sure whether to be touched or annoyed by the air of concerned reluctance permeating the group. "Because mein senses are set to a much higher frequency than yours," he explained in the patient, weary tones of one who had variations this conversation a thousand times before. "An illusion would fool mein eyes just fine, but everything would still smell, still _feel_ like metal and electronics. It wouldn't be the same, and I would know it. It's not a real test."

He straightened up and turned to face all of his friends, and Pietro currently being mentally filed as miscellaneous, at once, flashing his best Nightcrawler grin. "Now look, you asked me if I wanted to play, and I accepted. The first game is always the same, yes? One minute with your greatest fear; this is the only way we can really test it. _I'm _saying it's okay, and if it's not, then I trust you guys to get me out, alright?"

A chorus of reluctant consent and muffled sounds of shifted weight that met his ears, and he knew the argument had ended in his favor; though, clearly no one was particularly happy about the conclusion. But there wasn't really a counterpoint for his reasoning; he knew the rules when he consented to playing, and they applied to all the players. There couldn't be exceptions.

Satisfied with the decision, he smiled again, "It'll be like a group test," he laughed, "We'll all see how long we can last, ja?" That wrangled a little subdued laughter from his unsettled companions, and he mentally raised his fist in triumph, pleased that he had managed to ease their spirits somewhat. He started toward the lip of the fissure, but halted when Kitty's hand failed to release his own.

"I-I've changed my mind," she said looking up at him nervousness and distress evident on her face, "I don't wanna play anymore."

The desperate notes in her voice and her pleading blue eyes almost did it. He almost nodded and whispered sweetly that it was alright, that they could just go home now. But then he remembered those same blue eyes, wide and wild with fright as she scrambled away from her own fear. Rogue still as death as her own personal nightmare curled itself around her shoulders. Pietro's legs giving out from beneath him as panic overcame reason before their eyes. Evan's body fallowing the most basic of human reactions to terror.

Whether they had beaten their fears or not, each of them had at least faced them, stood alone with the cause of their nightmares and screams. He couldn't walk away without doing the same.

It was ironic because, to perfectly honest even with himself alone, he knew he had only joined the game because Kitty had said she wanted him to, actually playing didn't really mean anything to him at all. But at the same time it wasn't about anyone else either; it was about him and his own piece of mind. He knew he'd never be able to face his own reflection if he didn't at least _try_.

He smiled warmly, eyes soft and comforting, and squeezed her hand. "I have to do this, Kitty," he murmured, looking into her eyes, trying to convey with a look what he could not put into words. "I _have_ to."

He watched her pull her lip between her teeth and duck her head, an argument evident on her tongue, but she let go of his hand. 

-The Bat Cave; I based it more or less on pretty much any cave of bats you see in the movies. But I did look up a particular species common in New York that tends to roost in large colonies as I described commonly called the Little Brown bat. I have the cycle a little messed up, the roost I described is more akin to a hibernation roost rather than simply a day time one, but in the spirit of willingly suspended disbelief, let's just call it an odd colony.

-More On Bats; as I understand it, bats themselves actually tend to be pretty clean creatures, bat _caves _on the other hand, which tend to house hundreds to thousands of them at once, not so much. If it's an old cave, the floor tends be submerged under a layer, sometimes several feet deep, of bat waste and the remains of anything that happens to get stuck in the stuff and can't get back out. I hear it makes exceptional fertilizer.


	13. Chapter 13

**Okay, I just wanna take a little time here before we start the chapter to let you guys know how amazing you all are. I know I haven't been responding to reviews like I should, but it's not because I'm not checking or because I don't appreciate them, I swear. **

**As a couple of you already know, and I have been having a little spat as of late, but he's apologized very courteously and I'm thinking of letting him off the couch. Anyway, the point is, I really do appreciate every comment you guys leave me with. Every single one.**

**Anyway, as stolen directly from Twilight in 15 minutes…The part where the plot shows up!**

**Kurt forcibly swallowed the hard lump forming in the base of his throat as he glanced uneasily around the tiny cove, curling in on himself unconsciously trying to take up as little space as possible. The walls were stone, as were all the tunnels that made up the Caves, but they were stained with dirt and fine, sandy corners where time had worn the edges smooth. The stone behind his back was cool and slick with condensation, the frighteningly familiar musty mildew of stagnant water assaulting his sensitive nose. The world around him was damp and dark, all stone and water, and when he looked up, there was no sky.**

**Still, it wasn't **_**too**_** bad. The fall hadn't been racked with shock and terror as it was in his memory; it had actually been fun, exhilarating as such things had been since he'd learned to fly on the trapeze. Damp stone greeted him at the bottom as opposed to dirt and roots. There was a light jarring in his legs as his knees bent to take the brunt of the impact rather than the sharp, painful tremors shooting through his leg as it snapped…He could do this.**

**Even so, he could feel his heart rate increase, his muscles tensing as his body prepared to protect itself. His breath coming just a little bit faster as his lungs worked to keep up with adrenalin beginning to taint his blood.**

**The hole began to feel…tight. Confining, the already compact space feeling like less. **

"**30 seconds." Rogue's voice echoed above his head, sounding faint and far away, though he knew for a fact she was mere feet above him, close enough to reach out and touch if he really tried. **

**A beetle, startled by the sudden noise breaking through this world of near silence, skittered across his foot, and his whole body clenched involuntarily, squeezing just a little bit tighter to the wall, a soft cry of surprise escaping his lips. **

**He took a deep breath, expanding his lungs until he felt a dull ache in his chest, and forced himself to hold it for a beat before slowly releasing the air. The soft rush of air whispered across the little fissure, easing his frayed nerves and speeding heart.**

**He heard it before he felt it, the quiet crinkling of dirt and pebbles becoming loose, the gentle patter as they rained down, clicking against each other and the walls. And then, the familiar soft speckling of dirt falling down on him, tangling in his hair and sticking in his fur. The slight sting as it slipped into his eyes. **

**He scratched at his hair and face, movements erratic and obviously panicked, as he worked to brush the dirt and stone from himself. The beetles, frightened by his frenzied movements, began scuttle across the dirty floor, up the walls, over his feet. The itchy, eerie feeling of their tiny, almost hair-thin legs only increasing his panic.**

"**45 seconds." How could Rogue be so close and sound so far away? Didn't she see the walls closing in? Briefly a small, rational part of his mind wondered why she hadn't stopped the clock, why they hadn't come down to get him before realizing that their eyes, unsuited for the darkness of the Caves, couldn't see him all the way down here. And even his frenzied, erratic movements would be muffled and unheard to their less-developed ears. They wouldn't know until he called.**

**But he didn't consider these conditions long because the walls were closing in around him, crumbling down like dirt and dead wood. Phantom pains ghosted up through his legs, the memory of scars long healed.**

**There was no space, no air. His lungs began expanding and contracting in rapid succession, crushing against his ribs until he thought they would burst from his chest before suddenly shrinking so rapidly it squeezed the air his body was so desperate for right back into the stone. **

**And still the walls were closing, crumbling down around him. Dirt tangled into his hair and matted his fur, the slick dripping walls cold and uncomfortable, pressing in all around him. The beetles crawled over his feet and legs, desperate to escape his panicked struggling. There was no room to move, and it felt like his chest was being crushed; he could hear the cracking and shattering of his ribs, feel the sharp pinpricks of snapping bones as he struggled to breathe.**

"**55 seconds."**

**No **_**space..**_**.**

"**5..."**

…**No AIR**…

"4..."

…Couldn't get his breathing slow enough to scream, to get the words out. Couldn't call for _help_…

"3..."

…One breath, if he could just hold that one breath, as deep as he could make it…

"2..."

"GET ME OUTTA HERE!"

His cry shattered the stillness of the tunnel, crashing over the skittering of the beetles and the whisper of the lazy air drifting through the caverns, and for a moment he swore, silenced even the bats in the neighboring cave.

But the intrigue of the situation was lost on him as he broke off into less explosive whimpers, unable to stop as he tried desperately to make the words reach his friends, a repeating litany of "Get me out, get me out, get me out." His arms finally stilled against his shoulders as his body shook erratically both from the tremors of panic and terror wracking his systems, and from trying to dislodge the insects from his legs and feet. He couldn't figure out which way was up…

He nearly wept with relief when soft hands grasped hold of his shoulders, clinging to his upper arms and bruising the hidden skin through his fur as they tried to lift him up and out of his psychological prison. But they were too small, and he was too heavy, barely lifting his weight from the floor even with his assistance. He cried out in fear and rejected disbelief when they disappeared…

…only to reappear moments later _from_ the wall behind him, clinging determinedly to his upper-torso and pulling him back with them into the stone. The world suddenly black as ink and insubstantial as he felt himself rising upward as if he were smoke, those tiny, soft, glorious hands guiding him up and away from the dark, crumbling walls.

And then he was falling forward over Kitty as he felt the sudden solidness of his bones and flesh return to him. She fell backward under his weight, arms wrapped around him protectively as she whispered reassuring words that he couldn't understand, but the tone was enough to sooth his racing heart. His lungs still pulled at the air as if trying to find it underwater, but slowly they began to relax, the openness of the tunnel bringing relief and safety.

A slight trembling continued to wrack his body and it didn't dawn on him until her giggles whispered through his ears that his body wasn't actually shaking but being shaken as Kitty trembled violently beneath him with ill-controlled laughter.

"What," he gasped between his still rapid breaths, "is so funny?"

She looked up at him, blue eyes sparkling, alive with humor and mischief, "58 seconds, Elf," she laughed holding her index finger and her thumb about an inch apart under his nose. "You were this close."

He stared at her fingers for a moment as she dissolved completely into giggles, and then he was laughing with her. His sides hurt and he couldn't breathe, but he couldn't stop either, but that was alright because they were _all_ laughing, victims of the sheer mindless hilarity of terror and relief, the eccentric echoes of their helpless cackling wafting over each of them like a security blanket.

It must have been at least twenty minutes before any of them had sobered enough to breathe regularly, let alone speak. When he finally did manage to catch his breath, the first words out of Kurt's mouth had them all helpless with laughter again, "Maybe I should 'port us all into the middle of lake, ja? Logan will not be pleased if we stain the upholstery."

None of them noticed the softly glowing pale purple eyes watching with interest from the shadows as they disappeared in a cloud of smoke, the signature **Bamph**, and a brief echo of laughter all they left behind. But then they'd never noticed before, so why should now be any different?


	14. Chapter 14

Alright, I know I already asked this once, but as I mentioned before, side characters are going to facing their fears here in the upcoming chapters, whether they want to or not. I've got a few ideas, but if anyone has good, or just plain strange fear you don't mind sharing, you might see it in the story.

Also, I'm asking again for anyone who has access to the story _Cat and Mouse_, after the first two chapters. I can't help it; it's driving me crazy.

"Triskaidekaphobia."

"Fear of the number thirteen. Arachnophobia."

Evan laughed confidently, "I saw that movie. Fear of spiders, 'cmon man, give me a challenge. Xenophobia," he called over his shoulder expertly dodging the oncoming swarm of nearly-late students on his way to class as the harsh buzz of the final warning bell swarmed the halls. Kurt grinned to himself, he'd have at least a good forty minutes to figure that one out.

The game had not been nearly as graphic and nightmarish as he had previously expected, on the contrary, it was actually…fun. The stunts had calmed significantly after their initial turns at facing their most prominent fears; although, that probably had more to do with Bayville's distinct lack of anything particularly bloodcurdling or even vaguely gruesome than a lack of effort, but playing was no longer limited only to Saturdays.

The first turn of events had been a series of pranks the players were continuing to play on each other during the school hours. Evan had been quite creative by some how managing to fill Kurt's locker with dry, sandy dirt. His reaction had been instantaneous, a startled yelp escaping his lips as his suddenly numb fingers dropped his bag and books and he cleared the distance between his locker and the set behind him with one leap.

Kurt had retaliated by in turn placing a bucket filled with thick, dark, salted fruit juice precariously on the top shelf of Evan's locker. The effect was more than Kurt could have hoped for; the syrupy liquid looked and felt unnervingly like cooled blood, sticking to the other boy's skin and clothes for the entirety of the day, and more than once Evan had looked startlingly pale and unsteady on his feet.

To give credit where it's due however, all had to admit that Pietro who, refusing to reveal his secrets, had slipped _inside_ Rogue's locker and stiffly dropped out like corpse when she opened the door had taken the cake as the saying goes. The image of Rogue, hands flying to her mouth, eyes wide and frantic, as still as stone in the middle of the hallway with Pietro lying limply at her feet, still sent Kurt into a fit of giggles at the most inopportune moments.

Currently a battle of wits was underway in a verbal free-for-all in which each player defined a phobia presented to him/her by another. Then that player would respond with one of his/her own. This would continue back and forth until the players had to part ways for class. The outcome of this aspect of the game was as yet uncertain, but Kurt has his money on Kitty.

Ginning in amusement, Kurt swung his bag over his shoulder and started in the opposite direction from Evan as he made his way to his own class, estimating that, despite the suddenly vacant halls, he probably had enough to time to slip through the door just as the late bell rang. Computer Sciences was his least favorite class, though he deeply enjoyed the constant disbelieving looks on Jubilee and Bobby's faces as they watched what they knew to be three thick fingers, far more nimble than their appearance would suggest, dance across the keyboard without incident. Today, however, it didn't seem quite as daunting; his project was already mostly finished, requiring only a few last minute edits and touch ups, and that meant he could use the rest of the period putting the free internet service to good use and look up xenophobia as well perhaps some other less well-known fears. He wondered if that was against the rules…

He shrugged and shook the matter off, stifling a laugh when the listpinned to the school bulletin board caught his eye as he passed. Kitty and Rogue had pinned it there the week before, both still occasionally dissolving into giggles when some of the less-informed students took turns making sometimes very…bizarre guesses as to what it actually meant.

All it really was was the recoded times for each of the players involving the fist stage of the game in order from the longest achieved to he shortest. But it was far more entertaining to let others puzzle over it.

_Master List_

Kitty…….60seconds

Rogue…….60seconds

Kurt…….58seconds

Evan…….45seconds

Pietro…….15seconds

This still caused Kurt a brief twinge of concern when he looked at his recorded time since, as he had pointed out on several occasions already, he had actually begun panicking long before he screamed.

An off-handed shrug and "_We _don't know that," had been Evan's response the first time he had mentioned it. Which was true enough, Kurt had been almost completely isolated in that tiny cove due to his friends' merely human senses. All any of them had been able to see after he had disappeared into the void had been a thick sheen of black, as if they had been looking into an inkwell. The stone walls above and around him had swallowed the sounds of his soft cries and frenzied movements, echoing them around the chamber but never allowing them to surface. They were both fugitively and literally in the dark until he had actually screamed.

Still it bothered Kurt that he was currently ranking a position he didn't feel he'd earned.

"Flaw in the system, Elf," Kitty had explained just that morning at the Railroad Diner that was fast becoming a meeting place and general hang-out for their group likely due to its reputation of being haunted, though nothing more supernatural than the waitress knowing the customers by name had ever occurred while any of the teens were present. The old diner had been built back when the railroads were new, and the simple fact that place had managed to stick it out so long made it deserving enough for Kurt's money. "There were factors we should have taken into consideration and we didn't. It worked out in your favor."

"Ja. I just think it feels like cheating, that's all."

Kitty clicked her tongue in amused exasperation, "You are the only person in the world who would feel morally opposed to a victory by…well not even default." She smiled sweetly at Elaine, who was already putting their standard order together. Though the group was steadily becoming a standard feature at the old diner, Kurt and Kitty had been stopping in for coffee on their way to school for well over a year now, something Kurt secretly found slightly mutinous since he worked at an actual coffee shop several blocks over. But the Railroad Diner always kept a special pot brewing for truck drives and med. students whose tastes in coffee ran similar to Kitty's. The girl like it strong enough to chew with enough cavity inducing sweetness (Sugar, chocolate, caramel syrup, vanilla icing, though, Kurt had to admit that last one had actually been a pretty good idea.) to put Logan in a coma for a week. And for pie, you couldn't beat the place. "I thought you loved praise."

"Ja, when it's been earned." He waved off the few dollars she always tried to give him as he pulled out his wallet and fished a ten out the slip-pocket. "Keep it," he smiled, picking up his less…potent coffee and turning from the counter just as Elaine began counting out his change.

Elaine was short and slender, with a deceptively young face that matched her free, outgoing personality, marked with freckles and laugh lines along her warm brown eyes. Her dark red hair that bobbed just a bit longer than Rogue's was always pulled into a loose ponytail to keep it out of the way, and she adored Kitty like a little sister. She knew their standard order, but always waited until they actually placed it before getting it ready, saying, "The one time I jump the gun will be the day you two decide to change it on me."

Kitty smiled and shook her head, obviously amused, but quickly getting impatient with the broken record the conversation was quickly becoming. "Tell you a secret," she said randomly as they crossed the street, knowing it would pull him away from his line of guilty reasoning.

Mentally cursing himself for his obvious predictability, he eyed her curiously, "Vas?"

"My name's not Katharine," she informed him with a sly smile.

He felt his features shift into a mask of confusion, "Vas? I thought Kitty was short for Katharine. Though, I must admit I never quite understood how…"

She nodded, giggling a little, "It is, but not as far as I'm concerned. Mom came up with it, like, before I could walk when there were two of at daycare with the same name. It just kinda stuck ya know? But teachers can't, like, seem to keep it straight, and I gave up on correcting people by, like, forth grade. I usually sighed my name as 'Kitty' anyway, and besides," she looked up at him from the corner of her eyes, "Names are supposed to have power. No harm in keeping it to myself."

He laughed at the implication and took a sip from his Styrofoam cup, wincing slightly as the steaming, bitter, lightly sweetened liquid burned his tongue. "Where did you hear that?"

She smirked mischievously and began half-jogging up the front steps, calling over her shoulder, "That, Elf, is a secret for another day."

"Hey Kitty?" he called as she reached the door.

"Yeah?" she and turned to face him.

"Vas is it? Your real name I mean."

For a moment, he thought she was simply going to laugh in that soft, enticing way of hers before racing through the halls and leaving him to wonder. But than that slow, sweet smile spread across her face, making his heart jump in his chest and the blood sing in his veins.

"It's Katrina."

The borderline goofy smile that had slipped along his features as she slid through the doors returned as he the incident resurfaced in his mind. He whispered the name to himself, getting a feel for it, putting it to her face. It suited her, he decided, _sounded _like her; though, not quite sure himself what he meant, he was certain of the fact just the same. And the implication that the number of people in possession of this knowledge could have made the endangered species list pleased him more than he really thought it should.

He was so wrapped up in these musings he walked past the computer lab twice. 

Tabitha nearly missed the grating buzz that called an end to class. Her fault really, she should have turned the music down. But she couldn't concentrate on her English paper, which aside from being the deciding factor between passing Bayville High's English course and taking it again with Beast, was actually fairly interesting (An argumentative piece defending or rejecting Romeo and Juliet as a truly great love story.), with all the scientific gibberish floating around the room.

So she'd pulled out her headphones and cranked the volume up loud enough to make the untrained ear bleed, and set to work on politely bashing one of Shakespeare most beloved works. _I've been rejected. You're pretty. My life is nothing without you though we've only known each other about twenty-four hours. Yay! Suicide! Yeah, that's love. _Alright so that wasn't exactly polite, but it was a start…

She'd been so focused on working her thoughts into a single coherent piece, she hadn't really noticed the suddenly flurry of activity around her as her classmates gathered their belongings together and went about their own business until the lights went out.

She muttered a half-hearted curse, only mildly irritated that the teacher hadn't bothered to attract her attention before leaving. She had cultivated somewhat of a reputation after all. She shoved her notebook and cassette player in her back, nearly tripping as her heal caught on the leg brace of the high stool-like chair, designed to accommodate the taller lab tables. Righting herself, she gave the chair a light shove with her foot, proud of herself for stifling the urge to ensure the custodian's continued employment. The professor would be pleased with her progress.

Laughing at her own childishness, she swung her bag over shoulder and turned to leave when the small terrarium that had been an intricate part of the lecture she had ignored this period caught her eye. It was a small square of hard, durable plastic, no wider than a mouse pad, filled with an almost leaf-litter of mulch and a white, gauze-like webbing at the bottom. Inside, she knew, was young black and brown tarantula. But none of these facts where what had her suddenly rapt attention, no, that was held by the fact that hinge door on the front was open.

_Doc. Oliver and his damn visual aids!_

She took a deep steadying breath, filling her lungs with stale but calming air of the biology lab. Letting it out slowly, she considered her options. Option one, she walked out the door and pretended she hadn't noticed the arachnids accidental offer of freedom; after all, no one else had. If she did that, however, the creature inside _could_ get out, and then it would be loose in the school. She didn't have the numbers on it, but she was pretty sure Professor X, open minded as he may be, would not see a single spider infestation as a valid excuse for missing school.

That left option two.

Taking another breath to solidify her nerve, she crossed the small space between the tables and reached for the flipped door, hesitating just above the plastic. Squeezing her eyes tight and averting her head, she shoved her fingers beneath the door and jerked upright, like ripping off a band-aide.

She didn't open her eyes again until the latch was safely hooked, ensuring anything inside was not getting out. A relieved smile spread across her face, and she laughed at how silly she must have looked. Shouldering her bag, she turned and made for the door again.

A sharp, but almost inaudible _click_ stopped her in her tracks.

She turned on her toes, the usually quick, fluid movement slow and reluctant, her mind sending frantic commands to a body that wasn't listening, to ignore it. Don't turn around, just keep walking.

The cage was open. Worse, the spider was crawling out. 

-'slipped _inside_ Rogue's locker and stiffly dropped out like corpse when she opened the door.' I took that almost word for word from a Fear Street book I read in fourth grade. I don't remember the title, though.

-The Railroad Diner is a real place, and is really supposed to be haunted. It's about a fifteen minute drive from where I grew up, and the overview sums it up pretty well, apparently an old engineer is supposed to haut the place after dark. No evidence any such activity as far I could tell, but the food is amazing.

-'vanilla icing.' Coffee, skim milk, one overfilled spoonful of Betty Crocker Classic Vanilla, I swear by this.

-'My name's not Katharine.' Yeah, I actually didn't know 'Kitty' was a nickname for 'Katharine' until X-men, and even then it took a little while to connect the dots. So here, she's not.

-'But teachers can't, like, seem to keep it straight,' This really happens. I started sighing all my papers with a nickname because no matter how times I corrected or wrote my name, nobody in a position of authority could ever seem to get it right.


	15. Chapter 15

Eh, Sunday's a bit late, I know, but I got out before the week's up! 

The spider's movements were languid and unhurried, clearly in no rush to do anything as it crept slowly, leg by leg, out onto the new expanse of territory it now had to explore. In normal circumstances, even those of mere moments ago, the lazy, unconcerned nature of he eight-legged nightmare would only have served to unnerve the girl more. Such unhurried, careful steps, as if the creature moved in slow motion, literally creeping across almost any available surface, its steps weightless and almost apathetic, silent over even crumbling dead leaves. And yet those eight legs could cross the distance impossibly fast, as though the careful, deliberate steps were simply an illusion, a trick of the eye.

In those other circumstances, Tabitha would have little trouble imagining the itchy, creepy feeling of those long, hairy legs scuttling unwelcomely across her skin. The eerie tickling of all those legs crawling lazily up her leg or arm, the light, feathery feeling and almost weight stationary upon her hand. Even the sharp stinging sensation of those huge fangs pumping their liquefying toxin through her broken skin…

These circumstances, however, were hot and laced with rage that burned through her veins and curled her fingers into fists at her sides, so tight her hands were shaking. She felt her teeth clench against each other, her lips working into an angry frown as her eyes narrowed dangerously, not on the arachnid tentatively exploring its new found freedom, but on the unhinged latch that had allowed the creature entrance into the world beyond its clear plastic walls.

She was _sure _the lock had been secure. She had heard the telltale _click_, felt the slight pressure and release against her fingers…That lock had _NOT _failed and that door had not simply fallen open.

That meant that, despite the vacant appearance, she was not alone in the room. And judging from the ominous way the door had been opened, clattering forlornly against the hard, black top of the lab table, not to mention the disappearing act afterwards, someone was messing with her.

There were few ways to really get under Tabitha's skin; the headstrong blond carried an impetuous, reckless attitude that didn't often leave opportunities for negative emotions much more intense than profound irritation and annoyance, most events rolling off her back as fodder for her own personal brand of sarcasm and ironic justifications. But she would not stand to be _messed with_.

"Alright," she growled into the shadows that obscured the corners and tables along the opposite wall, "Who's playing games?"

The world seemed to freeze with the fading of her voice, everything perfectly still. The shadows on the wall no longer twisted and faded with the faint light filtering through the window in the door, the gentle blow from the air-conditioner failed to softly push the dust away from the vent, the very air was still, as though the room itself held its breath.

Tabitha inhaled sharply, the sound loud, _booming_ against the otherwise unnatural silence of the room. A cold dread coiled in her belly as she recognized the familiar sensation of unseen eyes following her movements and calculating her next reaction. She was well acquainted with the impression of being watched, a side-effect of a thousand Danger Room sessions with the infamous Wolverine or Cyclops looking down from on high, learning her team's strengths and weaknesses and mentally adjusting formats and programs to help them improve. She knew when there were eyes on her.

Logan was not there. Neither was Scott.

And she was not being watched, she realized, so much as…studied. She hadn't reacted as had been predicted, and now she was being observed like an experiment that had, while not disproving a hypothesis, opened a previously unconsidered side to it.

The cold that had coiled inside her suddenly wormed its way beneath her skin, seeping into her veins and chilling her very blood, as though the air itself robbed the heat from her body. She felt her eyes grow round and focused as across the room, suspended by the shadows that swarmed the area of black on black sheltered beneath the overhanging bookshelves and guarded by the lab tables with their tall stool seats, twin pools of light purple burned bright and florescent against the otherwise blackness of the little corner. Cat's eyes floating in the dark.

They blinked at her. Once…twice…

And then it scuttled out from the shadows. Small and insignificant, the spider was perhaps the size of dime if one was feeling generous. Its eight tiny legs scurried forward in rapid, perfect sequence, propelling the tiny creature with barely a sound across the glossy false marble floor. And it was not alone for long.

They crept from the creaks in the wall and seeped from the hairline fractures between the paneling of the ceiling. They clogged the air vent in the left corner of the room and fell from the heating vent on the floor. The room wriggled with their tiny bodies, the very walls alive and wreathing with their movements. The faint _scritch scratch _of millions of hair thin legs pressed in on her, thundering in her ears as the spiders crawled around and sometimes over each other, the room blackening with their sheer numbers.

She felt her jaw drop as her body tried force her vocal chords into a scream, a cry for assistance to anyone within shrieking distance, but no sound came out. Her throat constricted and choked as though the note were caught, buried beneath the defining clatter and scribble of the millions of tiny legs tapping against the smooth surface of the floor and tables, the more prominent pitter patter against the rough plaster of the walls and ceiling.

Her heart very nearly stopped as they started crawling up her shoe before thudding violently against her chest as if trying to break through her rib cage and burst from her flesh to escape the nightmare she found herself unable to wake from. Sweat began to collect along the back of her neck and shoulders, clammy and uncomfortable with the light breeze provided by the air conditioner, as adrenalin began clogging her systems, sharpening her senses and movements.

Her feet kicked out and stamped violently against the floor, the table, the wall in an attempt to dislodge the determined arachnids from their post, but for every one she knocked off there were a dozen to take its place. They began climbing up her legs, her jeans pulled and pressed against her skin with the weight of them. Her hands and arms flailed erratically, trying to brush them away as she continued to kick and stomp, very nearly throwing herself off-balance and into the midst of the invasion. But their sticky feet simply clung to her unprotected flesh, their hairy legs weightless and itchy against her skin. Her movements became jerky and erratic, as though she had shoved her finger into an electrical socket as she began to panic in earnest. She trembled and shook, desperate to free herself from the relentless onslaught of the spiders, the elevated levels of adrenalin tainting her blood instigating action instead of thought. But what the tiny creatures lacked in size, they made up for with sheer numbers, and within heartbeats she was very nearly covered with their itchy, scuttling bodies.

Tears leaked from her frantic eyes as they stuck to her shirt and clung to her jeans. Skittered up her unprotected arms, their legs hair-thin and itchy, their eerie, hard exoskeletons alien and frightening against her skin. They fell from the ceiling and tangled themselves into her hair…

Finally, throat burning and raw, her shriek pierced the halls. 

The scream bled with distinctive notes of terror and panic, a plea for assistance from some unspeakable nightmare that refused to relinquish its claim. Once again, Kurt simply reacted to the desperate, horrified sound. There was no thought, only reflex as he allowed his body to respond to the call, teleporting to where his sharp ears indicated the victim would be.

In truth, he was lucky the halls were empty, the explosive BAMPH and signature cloud of smoke that resulted from each reentry fell upon deaf ears as he forgot about returning to class from his errand to the office in favor of investigating the source of the unparallel terror trapped within that single piercing sound.

He appeared outside the biology lab just in time to see the door swing open, swatting away the lingering smoke from his teleport, as Tabitha fell through the doorway and right into Lance Alvers, landing them both in a tangled heap on the floor.

Judging from her frantic, panicked movements, her arms waving erratically about her head and shoulders, feet kicking out and swinging in wide jerky spasms as she wriggled and scuttled backward across the floor and further into Lance, the door had only opened by a lucky coincidence; she had probably merely accidentally swung the handle as her arms swung wildly about her frame.

Lance wrapped his arms protectively around her shoulders, half in a comforting gesture, half merely to still her flailing limbs before she injured him or herself, and shot Kurt a questioning helpless glance; comfort and delicacy had never been areas in which he held any real skill. Normally such a situation would be right in the area of the sweet, gentle X-man's expertise, but his teammate was absolutely hysterical, shaking and sobbing with tiny incoherent whimpers occasionally breaking through her rapid, almost hyperventilated breaths, and Kurt had no idea why. He responded with a similar expression of confusion and helplessly shrugged his shoulders, feeling useless.

Gradually, under Lance's inexperienced murmurings and tightened embrace, Tabitha's breathing evened, her struggles becoming less frantic, and her babbling began to take on actual meaning. "Spiders," she breathed and whimpered between gut-wrenching sobs and other less coherent rambling, "Spiders."

Leaving his teammate in the not-quite-capable care of a boy who, under more typical circumstances would have been a bitter enemy, Kurt entered the abandoned classroom. The problem made itself known upon passing through the doorway, and Kurt almost laughed at the implication that one little tarantula had caused such a dramatic reaction in the otherwise loose cannon aptly codenamed Boom Boom, all acquaintances perfectly aware that the term did not refer to her power alone. It was hardly even venomous!

Shaking his head, he gently lifted the fragile creature and allowed it to crawl from the expanse of his palm back into the small terrarium and carefully hooked the latch, the telltale _click_ sharp and distinctive in his disguised elfin ears. He took a moment to peer through the plastic casing that served as both a home and prison for the spider, wondering about what it thought its reinstated lifetime confinement and Tabitha's outrageous reaction. It seemed unconcerned with both surrounding events, not even pressing against the side of the plastic; instead it settled itself into a corner and kept any opinions to itself. 

- 'And yet those eight legs could cross the distance impossibly fast, as though the careful, deliberate steps were simply an illusion, a trick of the eye.' Anybody else ever notice that? I've seen 'em sit in a corner on the ceiling for _days_, seen 'em move almost millimeters at a time, and then they're on the complete other side of the room when you blink.

- A bit about tarantulas: They are deceptively huge spiders, most have extremely large fangs that are capable of breaking well into skin and delivering a painful bite, but the venom tends to be quite mild, most simply leaving an itchy tender spot on anything larger than most birds. This is not universal, some tarantulas are quite venomous and can cause serious illness and even death in humans. On the whole, however, it's the typically the little ones that really pack a punch.

- 'spider was perhaps the size of dime' These are based on a real species most commonly found in rainforest area, colony or social spiders. Very, very small spiders that gather in colonies of seriously hundreds or thousands. They live in webs big enough to catch anything from insects to unwary birds and all share the spoils.


	16. Chapter 16

_Frantically she pushed herself up, turning on her back just in time to see the lightning flash in those red, red eyes, cold and merciless just like the wind as it howled its victory above the growling of the thunder for all the forest to hear._

_Weakly she pushed herself backward on her elbows and feet as the vampire moved with stealthy, unhurried steps, knowing she was caught and drinking in her fear. Her breath came in panicked gasps as she stared into those red eyes, unable to see anything else. They were the color of blood, fresh and drying and so, so __**red**__…_

_So close now, only several feet away. Terrified and unsure of what else to do, she threw back her head and __**screamed**_-

The interruption in the form of a CRUNCH bar clattering unexpectedly into the 'V' of the book held open by her thumb and pinky finger caused Rogue, slightly more involved with the story than was possibly safe while trying to navigate the halls of Bayville High, clogged with students and teachers alike all eager to escape the bowels of education for the day, after the final bell, to jump, startled. A soft, involuntary gasp escaped her lips, her spine straightening instantly, shivers racing blindly up through her scalp and all the way to her toes. Her fingers managed to retain their grasp on Kitty's borrowed horror anthology, but the collection of text books that had been pressed between her shoulder and the crook of her elbow obediently bowed to the laws of physics and began their inevitable decent to the floor.

Such minor annoyances paled to background noise, however, when the books never made it to the glossy, white false marble tiles, or even passed her shoulder for that matter, replaced by a rush of air ruffling her hair and nearly turning the pages precariously pinned in place by her fingers. A clearly amused chuckle echoed in her ear, confirming her suspicions and sending new and unwanted, but exhilarating, chills racing up and down her spine as she released a mental groan of frustration and reassignment, her fingers already pulling the out-dated Coffee Bean stamp-card she'd been using as a bookmark from its hiding place between the back cover and the last page to mark her place. She held no illusions about finishing the short story anytime soon. And it had just been getting to the creepy part too!

"Xocolataphobia."

The word resounded softly throughout her skull; he'd leaned in close enough that she could feel his breath release as he spoke. Her own breath, much to her chagrin, caught in her throat, and she barely managed to repress the paridoxally nervous and content sigh that desperately wanted release. Pointedly taking one long step forward and creating about a foot of space between them, she fixed her features into a flawless expression of bored irritation before turning to face her thoughtful assailant. Gesturing slightly with the candy bar she'd pulled from the pages she responded flatly, "Fear of chocolate. What do you want, Pietro?"

He chuckled softly again, fixing her with that half smile. It _looked_ like him, she had decided some time ago when it had made its fist appearance that day in the Danger Room. His egotistical, self-centered tendencies lurking dangerously in plain sight, while at the same time this new more mature, more…confident side to his personality bled dominatingly through. It made his cool blue eyes sparkle stunningly and sent a tremor through her knees. She could feel the blood beginning to pool in her cheeks as she studied his face, sheer force of will keeping the heating color out of sight. "Peace offering," he said casually, nodding toward what they both knew was her favorite treat, her inability to leave a store, gas station, or even the school's cafeteria without a couple of the krispy candy bars speaking volumes she knew it would be pointless to deny. "I'm sorry about the locker thing, and I promise not to be within three feet of your locker ever again." He smiled charmingly, a teasing gleam shining in his eyes, "I can get that in writing and sign it in blood if you want."

Hiding her answering smile with slight turn of her head, Rogue accepted the chocolate, and accompanying explanation, for what it really was; a more corporeal offering of all the things he couldn't give her and all of the things she wouldn't allow him to even offer.

Rogue was not as ill versed in social relations as she would have most of the mansion's residents believe and knew that the tenuous not-relationship between herself and the Brotherhood's own personal Hermes was merely a temporary standing. Subtly was not a course in which Pietro excelled, and every word, every movement, every glance in her direction was a silent scream of his intentions. Pietro, she knew, would not hesitate to call her his girlfriend if she allowed him half the chance.

But every coin had two sides, and she also knew _Pietro_. His codename was well earned in nearly every aspect of his life, and anything-any_one_-restricted to the more mundane parameters of time and space simply could not hold his attention for very long. His famous, cocky declarations about the inability of lesser life forms to keep up with him were only half ego, and every gift has a downside.

It wasn't that he ever really had any hurtful intent toward the girls he dated; he was just childish and impatient and didn't consider the possible consequences of his actions. Right _now_ he found her fascinating, her darker, sarcastic personality set her apart from the majority of the female population at Bayville giving her an air of intrigue that she knew he found appealing. Her continued refusals of his advances made her something almost exotic and interesting. A challenge, and Pietro never had been able to walk away from a challenge.

But once he had what he wanted, once the chase was over and the newness expired, he would lose interest and be off again in a blur of air and color to fast for her eyes to follow. Rogue, who couldn't even give him anything beyond clasped hands and careful touches through protective layers, suspected such boredom would arrive sooner than he expected.

Why then, didn't she just give in to him? Give him what he wanted so that he could move onto the next challenge and she could have some peace? Perhaps it was the way his lovely blue eyes made her stomach jump pleasantly and the heat rise to her face. The way that smile she was beginning to grow so accustomed to seeing made her skin tingle and burn in ways that she loved and hated. Or the sudden stab of jealously, hot and all consuming, that bubbled and raged through her veins when she thought of those eyes on anyone else. Her reasons were as illusive and mysterious to her as they were any casual observer and exploring them would force her to come to terms with parts of herself that she was simply not ready to understand just yet.

And so she didn't, opting instead to roll her eyes heavenward in apparent exasperation and turning slightly to the side so that he could not see her face. She did, however, begin unwrapping the candy bar.

Breaking off a piece and allowing the smooth chocolate to melt slowly on her tongue, she held out her free arm for her textbooks raising eyebrow when he made no move to give them back. "Something else I can do for you?"

"Do you know what movie we're watching tonight?"

Rogue cover a groan by placing another bite-sized chunk of chocolate in her mouth, "No." He knew she would remain in as much suspense as he was concerning Kitty's choice of film until the viewing was scheduled, he was simply looking for reasons to not be leaving just yet. "But Kitty's picking, so you may want to grow accustomed to sleeping with the lights on."

He smirked playfully, "Did you ever find that snake?"

Wincing inwardly at the wound in her pride, never mind he'd merely mentioned the incident in jest, that he sincerely admired the level of self-control she had displayed that night especially in comparison with his own shortcomings, she narrowed her eyes and lashed out with far less playfulness than he had, "Let's talk about your sister."

She knew from the moment the words left her mouth she'd gone too far, the suddenly pale and carefully neutral expression plastered across his face further confirmation of the low blow. Pietro had a soft, raw spot where Wanda was concerned, and Rogue should have known better than prod at wounds best left alone. Silently she broke the CRUNCH bar in half and offered him the other end by way of apology.

He accepted the offered candy, flashing her that smirking smile that nearly threw her legs out from under her, clearly choosing to ignore her moment of pettiness to show that all was forgiven. In that moment, she didn't doubt that he would forgive her anything. A prospect that both delighted and terrified her.

He started down the hall, pulling her away from her paradoxical musings, "C'mon," he said glancing over his shoulder where she still stood, "I'll buy you a cup of coffee."

She snorted, "I don't drink coffee, and I'm certainly not gonna let _you _have any."

He laughed, loud and deep and with no trace of the mocking snicker she usually heard, "Cider then." And then he started down the hall again, her books held securely in his hand, swinging slightly in time with his stride. His movements were slow, for him at least, perhaps a brisk jog for an average person. He was giving her plenty of time to catch up.

This time she didn't fight the smile that wormed its way across her lips. Taking a bite of her candy bar, she set off at quick walk after his retreating back. After all, she had to get her books back.

But then, he knew that too, didn't he. 

Amara didn't manage to catch up with Kurt until after school. She had hoped to find him the halls after class and get some kind of confirmation about what had happened to her friend. She had gotten concerned when Tabitha didn't show up for Spanish class that day; it wouldn't be the first class the playfully rebellious blond had skipped in favor of more entertaining endeavors, but Spanish was one of two classes the girls shared and Tabitha usually made a point of being present at both of them if for no other reason that to spend the time with her more reserved and demure friend.

So she had stopped in the office after class and tried to weed some information out of the secretary, but all the stiff, older woman would tell her was that the other girl had been sent home early and the reasons for such action were confidential. By the time she had left the office, rumors had begun to float around like dandelion seeds in the wind. Some where ridiculous, some held some merit, and some were just silly. But there was enough of a common thread between the stories for Amara to deduce that Kurt would probably be the best person to talk to.

Unfortunately, their schedules didn't actually clash, and she had been unable to find him at all until after school had let out and he had broken off from his usual group on his way to work.

Had she been slightly less frantic and worried she probably would have laughed at the way he jumped and turned around, posture melting seamlessly into a crouching position as if preparing for a fight when she chased after him full pelt and yelled out for him, afraid of losing sight of him again.

As it was, she merely managed to puff out around her lungs' angry protests as they demanded air compensation for her six block sprint, "What happened to Tabitha?"

His eyes sparkled with concern even through the hologram, and he held out a arm to help steady her as she caught her breath. "You know about as much as I do. The professor will hopefully have better answers than me."

Sighing resignedly, she nodded and started back in the direction of the mansion, knowing she was simply going to have to accept the information he had to offer and hope her friend was alright. She chewed her lip, a nervous habit of hers when worry and fear became the dominant emotions in her body, her steps quick and desperate, eating up the distance as she hurried home to her friend.

She couldn't know what a target she made of herself, wearing her concern and nervousness so clearly for the world to see. How the scent of her anxiety wafted thickly in the air around, and how closely some might follow that scent. How much easier she would be to break. 

-Rogue's short story is just an excerpt from an old Twilight fanfic I wrote eh maybe a year or so ago. No connection whatsoever to this story.

-Hermes, Greek god of swiftness.


	17. Chapter 17

**Okay! So, not dead. I know this took forever, and **_**am**_** sorry, and I have several perfectly valid excuses for the delay…But I don't believe in making excuses, valid or not, so I'll just remind everyone that I have on several occasions mentioned that it sometimes takes me a while to update and leave it at that.**

**Once again, I apologize for the delay. Hope you're still reading!**

**Kurt had to resist the urge to bash the scolding hot espresso basket against his forehead as it steamed and dripped boiling water into the rack of the espresso machine, **_**only**_** water. He had forgotten to fill the basket before pulling the shot, in essence simply cleaning the filter. So he now had a small Styrofoam cup containing hot, vanilla flavored water, and he'd already steamed the milk. By the time he re-pulled the shot (Hopefully with espresso this time.) the milk would be too cold to use, and if he re-steamed it after he pulled the espresso, the shot would go rancid. He would have to start all over again. **

**He closed his eyes in exhausted frustration and released a quiet groan before fixing his features into a mask of contritment, an innocent, apologetic smile spreading across his lips as he turned to face the customer. The customer, a kindly old man with bifocal glasses, a neatly trimmed white beard, and the top of his left thumb missing, was beginning lose patients with him. Not that Kurt blamed him, this was not a difficult, though fairly time consuming, drink to make. He'd done it a thousand times before; he could probably do it in his sleep, and he'd just messed it up four times.**

**And this was merely the latest in list of mistakes, made that day alone, that was as long as his arm. Oh no day was ever perfect, there were always little mishaps like misunderstanding the customer, a customer who doesn't really know what he/she wants and orders something completely different, forgetting to switch out the coffees when the timer goes off, mislabeling a bag of cookies or a muffin, little things that cannot always be avoided. Today, however, he had made grievous errors with more than one specialty drink, crashed the cash register twice, miscounted change, over and under charged six different people, dropped an air-pot which shattered the fragile glass interior, spilled a whole tray of muffins onto the kitchen floor, which he'd just mopped a half-hour beforehand, misquoted at least two orders, and finished with this vanilla latte fiasco.**

**He mentally quoted the steps to himself as he began making the old man's order for the fifth time, **_**Two shots of vanilla syrup, add two shots of espresso, fill to the black mark with steamed milk, and top off with foam**_**. He completed the task successfully this time and smiled apologetically, offering the unnaturally understanding customer a triple chocolate brownie on the house for the inconvenience, an offer he'd been forced to make more than once that day. He released a relieved sigh when the man accepted the compensation and left the store with no obvious irritation (He was a regular customer that Kurt would have hated to lose.) and, considering the amount of syrup, milk and espresso he had wasted with this one order alone, wondered if perhaps it would have been more cost effective to simply call in sick despite the fact that he was the one of only two employees, and his coworker was out of town for the month.**

**His powers of concentration, never exactly enviable to begin with, had taken a damaging hit since the incident in the hall that morning. He had finally managed to banish the image and all related thoughts of Tabitha Smith, the reckless, outgoing, and aptly named Boom Boom, shaking and sobbing vulnerably in the middle of the hall until it was all mere background noise ringing in his ears, and then he had spoken with Amara. **

**Kurt's sense of smell, while nothing like Logan's legendary nose, **_**was **_**set at much higher register than the average person's. Everyone had a distinct scent as unique and individualized as a fingerprint beneath the predictable layer of accumulated smells gathered from surroundings. Kurt, within a realistic area, could identify each of the mansion's occupants by scent alone and could quickly learn to identify a person or thing by consistent extraneous scents one picked up by simply existing. He could also pick up on subtle changes within a person's scent.**

**For example, the body undergoes multiple chemical reactions when under stress such as fear, nervousness, or even just excitement. The release or withholding of certain chemicals within the body slightly or dramatically, depending on the circumstances, alters bodily functions which in turn will alter that body's typical scent. Logan, unlike Kurt, was able to distinguish between these reactions, identifying an underlying scent with an emotion, so it was not an exaggeration when students whispered ominously in the Danger Room that the intimidating Wolverine could 'smell fear'.**

**From her scent alone, Kurt could only tell that she was experiencing a state of high emotional stress, but he didn't need Logan's nose to determine the cause. The fear and anxiety written openly on her face did that for him.**

**The girl in question hardly bothered to catch her breath before launching into the reason she had chased after him at an Olympic grade sprint for six blocks, and Kurt was worried for a moment that she was going to pass out. But she remained steady on her feet, her dark brown eyes pleading into his for answers that he simply did not have. He winced inwardly at her downcast expression when he told her she would have to talk to the professor if she wanted any valid information and wished he could do more. **

**The incident, although fleeting, had managed to stir up his own concerns and anxiety about his teammate, and he kept flashing back to the moment in the hall...**

"_**It's alright, Tabitha," he said gently, kneeling down in front of his teammate and her accidental rescuer, unable to suppress a relieved sigh when he saw that the girl had relaxed somewhat, no longer shaking and only releasing occasional whimpers as opposed to the panic induced sobs that had echoed his entrance into the classroom. "I put the spider away."**_

_**She looked at him strangely, as if she couldn't understand what he was saying, icy blue eyes wide and frightened, but her expression was clearly confused as opposed to fear. "But there were thousands of them." Her voice was raw and husky from crying, but definite and certain. Strong.**_

_**Still, Kurt could not repress the shiver of worry that jumped along his spine all the way to the very tip of his hidden tail. His own features melted into a mask of concerned curiosity, "Th-"**_

"_**What is going on here?" The demand was cold, lacking any real empathy or concern, the voice dripping with authority and wrapped in gentlemanly tones that did not fit with the obvious contempt the words carried. There was never any mistaking Principal Kelly.**_

_**Kurt turned to face the man, recognizing this was not the time to nurse anyone's wounded pride or call Kelly on his unfair tendencies, and quickly spoke up before Lance, the other boy's face already holding its more customary rebellious scowl, had the chance to. "Somebody played some kind of trick on Tabitha vith a spider and scared her. Badly." **_

_**Kelly raised a skeptical eyebrow and crossed his arms over his chest in an obvious gesture of passive hostility, "Yes, and you and several other students from Xavier's have been playing similar tricks on each other all week."**_

_**Kurt gritted his teeth, his own expression melting into one similar to Lance's at the thinly veiled accusation, and he had force the growl out of his voice as well suddenly work to keep his speech in English, "Tabitha is not playing."**_

_**Whatever Kelly's response would have been was lost as the girl stood, Lance rising with her, his hands continuing to grasp her shoulders firmly in a gesture half of comfort and half to keep them well out striking distance of Kelly. "Don't fight," she pleaded softly. "Please? I'd just like to go home now, if that's alright with you, Sir."**_

_**The principal's expression became suddenly neutral, unsure of what to make of the usually loud and intentionally obnoxious girl sounding so small and uncertain. Her eyes, usually fiery and expressive, were…chilled and somber, refusing to meet anyone's gaze. "Yes," he said hesitantly, realizing that perhaps the problem was perhaps more significant than he had originally believed, "Of course. Take a seat in the office, and I'll have Ms. Tissue call one your guardians-"**_

"_**Don't bother, I know the way," Lance growled, glaring at the man as if daring him to press the issue. For once, Kelly let the moment slide, nodding slightly at the hostile teenager and returning back down the hall toward his office without even offering Kurt a condescending 'Get to class' before departing.**_

_**Kurt looked after his retreating back and glanced uneasily at the biology lab door, "Xenophobia," he murmured to himself, the word had seemed so insignificant just an hour before, playfully thrown over Evan's shoulder in the hall. "Fear of the unknown." **_

**The sharp, wet sting that soaked his fur and clung to the skin beneath, dragged him back to the present with a cry of surprise. A heartbeat later, the soft plopping sound of the over-steamed milk exploding from the small silver container, registered within his distracted mind**__**as the near boiling liquid doused not only his wrist and upper arm, but the left leg of his pants, the counter, the side of the espresso machine, and his shoes. **

**It was going to be a long day. **

**Wanda closed her eyes and bit the inside of her lip as she slowly counted to ten, taking a deep breath every odd number and releasing it on the evens. By the time she made it to ten, she was reasonably certain she could complete the trip without actually attempting to turn Toad inside out. At least in the middle of the local Walmart.**

**She would prefer, as was most often her habit when left to her own devices, to do the grocery shopping alone, or at the very least with only Fred, who had actually proven himself to be a surprisingly good shopper and decent company when he wanted to be. Unfortunately for her sanity, more often than not the boys could no more resist the allure of a valid excuse to get out of the house and stretch their legs than she could, and so the trip was almost always a group effort.**

**Tonight, however, Lance had remained behind, too keyed up over something, he wouldn't say what, to trust himself in public. Pietro had also ducked out of the usual excursion into town in favor of spending the afternoon and early evening with the current object of his affections and opted to simply stick around the Mansion after walking her home since that group had planned to play their game tonight anyway. **

**That left her alone with Fred and Toad. **

**Fred, she had long ago decided, was not so bad. As if in compensation for his massive consumption, he had proven himself to be a careful and methodical shopper. Possessing an almost sixth sense that led him to the best sales and performing math that he wouldn't be able to write out during class in his head, he carefully weighed each item against its price and value to get the most of their collective dollar. He was also reasonably quiet and surprisingly interesting when they did talk (A twenty minute lecture on why the off-brand chocolate sandwich cookies were not the same as Oreos that had left her far too amused to be irritated with the giant, readily sprang to mind as she considered the observation.) and, otherwise, happy to leave her to do as she pleased.**

**Toad was a different matter altogether. He was agonizingly vocal and persistent with the obviously intense crush he continued to harbor on her and always took advantage of any opportunity in which he could increase his attempts to win her favor without the threat of getting hexed. Such as tonight, where the crowded streets and even more densely clogged aisles of the store, made doing anything more elaborate than a dangerous glare that promised retribution later-a price the shorter boy was more than happy to pay-simply impractical.**

**She sighed again through clenched teeth, knowing deeply in her bones that, despite what she may claim and even outwardly attempt to follow through with, she would never actually hurt the little slime ball…permanently at least. If she were to be perfectly honest, with herself if no one else, she would be forced to admit to liking her greasy teammate despite watching him swallow house flies like they were candy. And the stench that seemed to permeate the room before he was even within sight. And even the slime he constantly left in gooey trails as Hansel and Gretel may have left breadcrumbs was a **_**little**_** endearing once you got used to it. **

**So yes; she found herself actually harboring soft…friendly feelings for the boy who could only really be described as, well, Toad. Not in the way he so obviously and desperately wished she did, but enough to hurt a little for him because she didn't.**

**But, despite the slight affection she harbored for her hygienically challenged friend, there were only so many sickeningly sweet pet names and cheesy pick up lines she could handle without envisioning catching that impressive tongue of his on an eggbeater. **

**Thankfully, she had managed to slip away from him in the electronics when he became enamored with the newest high-definition entertainment system they had on display.**

**Stretching her arms and rolling her shoulders in an attempt to work out the kinks that dealing with Toad always left her, she wandered down the first aisle she came to that wasn't already occupied so fully it made movement nearly impossible. Although she had allowed herself a bit more flexibility than most of the store's occupants, having left the buggy with Fred for his fun, the wide lanes were sometimes so densely packed she felt as though she were trying to fight her way through the clogged waters of a Salmon Run and was not particularly enamored with the idea of having to perform gymnastic feats simply to stroll through the canned goods.**

**Her own eyes rolled in mild annoyance provoked by the disapproving glare she could feel targeting her retreating back, though she did not turn to see which eyes had initiated it. Toad's was not the only unwanted attention she had forced herself to grow accustomed to.**

**Wanda, despite her lost childhood and near lifetime confinement in the mental hospital where her father had abandoned her to fate making her somewhat…naïve and perhaps a little aggressive against the parameters of social behavior, was intelligent and, like most individuals lacking a formal education, logical in her thought patterns. She understood readily and easily that if all she wanted was to rid herself of the unappreciated stares of disapproval from the older or more conservative members of the community and the more…**_**appreciative**_** ones from the majority of the Bayville's male population, as well as good percentage of the female minority, the solution would be to simply alter her appearance into something of a…quieter style. Bayville was a small city by most accounts, and even the dark, sullen ensembles of the town's trademarked Goth, Rogue, tended to have a softer, more watered down air about them.**

**On the other hand, however, she relished in her newfound freedom of expression; something she had been deprived most of her childhood. For almost as far back as she could remember her wardrobe had consisted a of a series of hospital gowns, all a plain, neutral beige color chosen specifically for its decidedly bland, non-threatening feel. The walls of her small room, her world for a sizable percentage of her life, had been an equally dull and mind-numbingly cream laid over large concrete bricks that both housed and stifled her. The floor was a simple gray, the color of stone, and her bed that same calming, infuriating, soft beige that she sometimes saw in her dreams.**

**The opportunity to choose her own style was something she coveted, craved with an intensity that almost overpowered the feelings of rage and torment directed at her father. When said opportunity finally presented itself, in the form of the crippled but kind Professor Xavier, she'd wanted the blend of colors and fabrics to say something about **_**her**_**.**

**She **_**liked **_**the deep crimson that was always the base for any of her chosen outfits. Such a rich, vibrant color, the unmistakable hue of blood pumping through endless paths of veins and muscles. Decidedly and irrevocably alive. And she **_**liked**_** the way the way the soft, glossy material of her perfect fit, low-cut pants caught and threw the light in predictable simmering patterns across her thighs and shins. She **_**liked**_** way the fabric moved with her skin as opposed to over or along it. She **_**liked**_** the stark, profound contrast between the bright red of her corsets and the dark foreboding onyx of her pants. She **_**liked**_** the way the tight, confining fabric of her corsets forced her to control her breathing, forced each breath to careful and soothing, calming the rapid, violent patterns in her thoughts. She **_**liked**_** the heavy, chunky jewelry that adorned her fingers, wrists, forearms, and neck, cool and clanging against itself like armor.**

**Mostly, however, she supposed she liked the contrast it offered between herself and her brother. Simple black shirts tucked into faded, worn blue jeans. His striking white hair was always flawlessly combed back and silvery snow in any light, so different from the rough, jagged edges of her own home-job that caught and threw the light at different angles, the vibrant scarlet undertones sometimes overtaking the ink black threads in a striking crimson sheen. The dull, faded colors Pietro favored warmed the naturally pale skin the siblings shared, while her own deeper, richer choices served to accentuate her alabaster complexion until the thickly applied makeup around her mouth and eyes could have been painstakingly pained on the face of a porcelain doll. Even his cool, sky blue eyes seemed washed out against the brilliant sapphire of her own.**

**And the fact that Even had once, long enough ago that it shouldn't matter, playfully commented on how well the red brought out the blue of said eyes had nothing to do with anything. Really.**

**A quick, deliberate shudder from the base of her skull all the way to the very tip of her spine easily shook away those thoughts that she'd rather leave un-contemplated as her eyes quickly scanned the shelves mentally labeling the aisle she had wondered into while her thoughts had escaped her. She had barely managed to identify it as snacks when the smallest twinkle in the corner of her eye dragged at her attention.**

**Walmart placed miscellaneous clearance items in odd, almost random, places, and this was no exception. Her fingers, chalky pale against the shiny, hard coat of crimson painted on each of her nails, grasped the small set of barrettes with uncharacteristic gentleness, carefully pulling them from the plastic holder. They were small and thin, more akin to fancy bobby pins than actual hair-clips, with a silvery base and an elegant line of rhinestones sparkling along the top.**

**Wanda suddenly found herself chewing her lip in a self-conscious manner that she had never dreamed herself capable of, and feeling pathetic as she stared intently at the tiny accessories, because they were soft and pretty and girly and wouldn't match a thing she owned, wouldn't match**_** her**_** at all…**

**But **_**Evan**_** would love them on her; she was more than certain of that. **

**She could just see that playful, teasing smile curl across his mouth, his intriguing, black eyes sparkling mischievously and his deep, smooth voice catching on an ill-suppressed laugh as he told her they made her hair shimmer, or framed her face nicely, or something equally soft and sweet in that casual, teasing tone that always smelt of sand and woodchips. And it would make her insides jump and tingle in that pleasant/frustrating way because he would **_**mean**_** every word of it. **

"**Hey Miss Scarlett!"**

**She started slightly and quickly dropped her hands behind her back, the edges of the rhinestones biting into the soft flesh of her palm and fingers as her grip on the barrettes tightened reflexively. She winced inwardly at the shallow, diamond imprints being forced into her skin, but her hold did not loosen as she calmly lifted her head to face the object of her thoughts, her features fixing themselves into a scowl as if daring him to comment on the way she had nearly jumped out of her skin.**

**But if Evan had noticed her out of character anxiousness at his call, he kept it to himself, leaning forward over the cart he maneuvered like a skateboard and giving the handle a sharp jerk to the left. The cart rocked precariously on its two left wheels for a moment, but only a moment as it turned into the aisle, the position allowing it to slip between the buggies of two other shoppers at the mouth, missing both by a hairsbreadth, before slamming back onto all fours. That still left it with enough momentum to continue careening wildly down the aisle.**

**Wanda blinked, uncertain whether pressing herself against the shelves, fleeing the aisle altogether, or attempting to hex him in place was the best option given the circumstances. At the last second, however, Evan leapt backward, his knees bending to accept the force of the landing and the lost momentum. His hands shot out almost as his feet hit the floor, locking tightly onto the handle of the buggy and jerking backwards sharply. The cart came to an abrupt halt right beside her, the escaping inertia propelling its contents forward, all crashing into and on top of each other.**

**He turned to her, that wide, playful smile the prominent feature on his face, and offered a silly, playful bow in greeting.**

**She rolled her eyes at the childish display, but smiled to herself, secretly amused, "What are you doing here?"**

**His smile grew teasing as he offered a half-shrug and pulled a rumpled square of paper from his back pocket, waving slightly between two fingers. "Shopping."**

**Turning back to the shelves, he unfolded what was presumably a grocery list, "Let's see, Oreo's, Kurt likes 'em with peanut butter…Pietro's Hershey Kisses…cookie dough for Kitty…Aha! CRUNCH bars for Rogue!" His excited exclamation was punctuated by both hands shooting out collecting as many of the treats as each could hold.**

**Wanda regarded the already impressively loaded buggy, which closely resembled what she imagined Halloween might look like if it exploded. "How is it you all continually function?" she asked, a hand going to her jaw in sympathy as phantom pain assaulted her teeth just looking at the mess. **

"_**That**_** is a question that has kept Tech up at night for **_**months**_**," he responded in the most serious voice he could muster, dropping his collection among the other various cavity inducing treats he'd picked up during this trip. "He wanted to run a few tests, make some observations, perhaps get some blood work, but the Prof. told him no; we had finals in the morning." He glanced thoughtfully at his third handful of Rogue's well-known chocolate addiction before shrugging nonchalantly and tipping the whole box in.**

"**Well, have fun slowly rotting your insides," Wanda dead-panned as she started stepping back out of the aisle.**

"**You should come." The sentence was quick, as if the words were fighting to escape his tongue, and obviously an impulse. The tone was edged and nervous, not Evan's usual teasing, relaxed tone at all. His expression was an odd combination of neutrality and hopefulness, and his lovely black eyes sparkled with both excitement and fear. For the first time she could remember, Evan seemed insecure.**

**She narrowed her eyes and offered a brief shake of her head, "I thought we'd already established I have no interest in joining whatever silly game you guys have come up with."**

"**I know, but it's just a movie tonight. It's not really part of the game; I mean Bobby and Roberto are coming, Scott said he and his friend Paul might show up, that Arcade guy Kitty hangs out with is gonna be there, and I think he's bringing someone too, and Rogue's weird friend, Risty, is gonna stop by."**

**He shifted his weight nervously from foot to foot, though he did not lower his eyes, and gestured to his over-filled cart, "'Cmon, we've got a ton of junk food, and Kurt's gonna grab Blob's weight in pizza on his way home from work, and…well, Kitty picked the movie so you'll probably never sleep again, but it'll be fun. You should come."**

**Her impulse was to reject him, quickly and harshly, to make him stop **_**being**_** there and saying sweet things and reminding her that in this world she had never had the chance to understand or find her place in, **_**someone**_** remembered her as she used to be, and **_**someone**_** cared for her still. But his invitation was sweet and genuine and that alone gave her pause.**

**Evan liked her, perhaps even loved her, not because she was beautiful, though she knew that she was, in her own jagged, sinister way, and not because she was new or exciting, but because she was **_**Wanda**_** and that was all he wanted. **

**But the world had not been kind to Wanda, and though that had not been Evan's fault, it tainted her view of him as surly as it had her father, brother, and everything else. Would he hold those feelings for her in a day? A week? Years? And more importantly, would she care if he didn't?**

**The clips biting diamonds into the soft palm of her hand told she would. And that was something she was not ready to face just yet; perhaps she never would be. **

"**No," she replied finally, voice softer than it had been in years, and for the first time, a cold pool of uncertainty collected solidly in the pit of her stomach. "No, thank you, but no."**

**She watched his face fall and the shine in his eyes dim as he nodded his assent, accepting her decision, and it occurred to her in that moment that she had never actually turned him down before. Oh she had yelled, and threatened, taken a swing at him once, but he had never come right out and actually asked before, and so she had never really said no. She wondered if this moment was the reason it had taken so long.**

**A frozen wave of fear crashed over her, chilling her to the very bone and numbing her fingers and toes as though she had spent too much time in the snow. For a moment she was certain that she had gotten her unspoken wish, that she had shoved him away forcefully enough this time that he would not be coming back.**

**But with that speed and grace she new he did not possess, he was beside her, his lips warm and wet against her cheek in that playful and intentionally sloppy third-grade kiss he always left her with. "Later Miss Scarlett." **

**And nothing had changed. **

**Wanda wondered down the aisle in a thoughtful haze, moving on instinct rather than desire, her eyes and thoughts somewhere far away. But Toad did not catch the significance of the moment, or even truly register the distraction in her movements, or really her movements at all. Because the only thing his mind was willing to register was a single sentence chasing itself along as though someone had put it on repeat...**

_**She didn't put him through a wall. She didn't put him through a wall. She didn't put him through a wall.**_

_**-**_**Xenophobia, most commonly defined as the fear of strangers, is also sometimes taken to mean a fear the unknown. And I've got like eight sources backing me up on that, so don't be trying to correct me!**

**-Ms. Tissue, Real person, I swear to God.**

**-About the Oreos, I agree with Fred. **

**- And the stench that seemed to permeate the room before he was even within sight. Terry Pratchett rip-off. Anyone else think Toad would make a wonderful Foul Old Ron?**

**-When said opportunity finally presented itself, in the form of the crippled but kind Professor Xavier, I've always found it a little odd that she was decked out in full punk gear even from her first appearance while still being held at the mental institution. Most medically inclined places, especially those that need for their patients to be kept as calm and pliable as possible, provide clothing, usually a neutral beige or blue color, and they certainly wouldn't let anyone run around with all that jewelry she wears; it could be used as a weapon. Now a lot of places do allow patients to wear their own clothes, but Wanda was left there when she was a child and wouldn't have anything like that. She is also a special case; I mean no one in their right mind was going to take her out, and I can't imagine any of her doctors bringing back those things for her. Less believable was the image of Wanda sitting on her bed with a bunch a magazines and a marker circling this and that and giving her requests to a passing doctor. So, I decided one of things Professor Xavier did during those sessions mentioned in the show, was take her shopping. **

**-Walmart placed miscellaneous clearance items in odd, almost random, places, this is true. I actually found a pair of clips just like the ones Wanda found in the sauces.**

**-Wanda's commentary on Evan's sugar consumption, paraphrased from Gilmore Girls**


End file.
